


Of a Castle, Dreaming

by michi_thekiller



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Angst and Humor, Coming of Age, Eventual Smut, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Growing Up, Gryffindor!John, Hogwarts, Humor, It's a long way away, Kid Fic, Kid John, Kid Sherlock, Kidlock, M/M, Mutual Pining, Potter!Lock, Potterlock, Pre-Slash, Slash, Slytherin!Sherlock, Teen Romance, Teenlock, Unrequited Love, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-03
Updated: 2013-12-14
Packaged: 2017-12-04 04:15:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 36,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/706431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/michi_thekiller/pseuds/michi_thekiller
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story of John and Sherlock's school years at Hogwarts, starting at Year One and going all the way to Year Seven; their adventures, their challenges, their losses and their triumphs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [venvephe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/venvephe/gifts).



> Dedicated to [Venvephe](http://venvephe.tumblr.com), who is my muse and co-conspirator in one. She originally requested this. All hail Venvephe!
> 
> Original parts are posted on tumblr, where there will be weekly updates. They will be compiled here in lengthier chapters for ease of reading.

John Watson hadn’t a wink of sleep the whole two weeks before school started. Every night he’d climb out of bed to sneak books out of his trunk to peruse them, marvelling at the illustrations, reading them by torchlight under the covers. He especially liked the Monster Book of Monsters, as it purred when he drifted off, and sometimes it liked to cuddle. As a result of his late-night study efforts, some nights he never even made the journey to his room. Sleep would claim him in inopportune locations: on the couch, on the table, on the floor; with his cheek on the page, drool sticking the latter to the former, and he’d have to be carried to bed, muttering and squeaking the dreamt-up words of spells the entire way. He’d insisted on wearing his robes at home, despite the heat of the material in those early autumn weeks, with summer still lingering on its edges. Robes were allowed. His wand, however, was kept locked away from him. There was a very strict no-wands-in-the-house-rule, which was a wise decision - probably the only thing that kept all the Watsons out of St. Mungo’s that summer.  

It was all Harry’s fault. She had gotten her letter two years prior and, consequently, had become absolutely _unbearable_  to live with. Every holiday she’d come home with stories of school and of all the spells she’d learned, all the tricks and magic and new inventive ways with which she could torture her little brother. Even without her wand she could still wreak mischief; once she had turned John’s hair the colour and texture of candyfloss for two weeks. (It hadn’t tasted like candyfloss, both a tragedy and a godsend; it would be hard to explain to Mum that he’d eaten himself bald, even if it was Harry’s fault.)

 

The week leading up to John’s birthday was the worst. “John’s letter hasn’t come yet,” Harry would crow as she checked the post. “I’ll bet he’s just a  _Muggle!_ “ 

She had gotten solidly reprimanded for that, of course. There was nothing wrong with being a Muggle, as their father was, and so were most of their friends. John admired his father very much, who was a strong, brave man, and very smart besides, and in any other instance, he would have been proud to be compared to Dad. In this instance, however, Harry drove him to near tears.

He’d nearly exploded with joy when he saw the great-horned owl; two days after he turned eleven. It was both a surprise and a rather fortunate thing that he hadn’t; it was difficult to attend school to learn magic when one was a messy pile of once-John smithereens.

He’d gone to sleep hugging his letter that night, shivering happily with his heart thrumming in his chest.

* * *

 

And then, all of a sudden, summer was over.

John had been fine, all the way to King’s Cross Station. He was fine when he got there, minus one moment of customary panic as he ran full speed into what was clearly a solid brick wall  - he was going to die, he was going to die, oh god - with a great thrill of exhilaration when he appeared on the other side, triumphant at having cheated death yet another day. He was fine up until the Express pulled into the station, bigger than he’d ever imagined, big like he thought of grand elephants and airplanes and gods were big, and he forgot how to speak. He had to be reminded to hug mum and hug dad, and then he was bustled onto the train with his new owl ([Socrates](http://www.owls.org/images/strix_aluco_sylvatica_large.jpg), oh wow, an owl, oh wow he owned an owl, how brilliant was that!) and his trunk and then all that was once order was chaos. All that he had known for his entire admittedly rather short life was now standing on the platform, waving up at him, and he didn’t know anybody and he was on his own.

Harry of course, had been instructed, “take care of your little brother!” and she’d made a valiant effort of it, holding his hand for the first five minutes that they’d stepped onto the train. He had, of course, in those five minutes, been told, “Listen, twit, if you embarrass me, I’ll end you,” hissed out the corner of her mouth. Followed by a quick, “Oh, hi, Dahlia!” as she waved brightly at a Ravenclaw girl passing by.

As soon as Dahlia had gone, Harry said, “Okay, listen, I know you’re probably all nervous and all that because you’re you, but you needn’t be. Mum and Dad told me to look after you, so I’m gonna. But you know all those cop movies you like? And like the cops sometimes go undercover to protect people, yeah? That’s how it’s going to be with you an’ me. It’ll be safer for both of us if I’m undercover. So when we get to school, the special mission starts. Don’t talk to me, don’t look at me, and in fact, you should pretend we don’t know each other. It’ll be for your own good.”

“Oh, Harry, there you are!” a pretty Indian girl said as she stuck her head out of a compartment. “Come on, we’ve saved a spot for you!”

“Be right there, Clara!” Harry called back. She turned to John. “Actually, you know what? We should practise starting now. You must keep my identity a secret, young Watson.”

“But, Harry—!”

“Shhh, John, undercover!” Harry mouthed at him, with a finger to her lips. She winked at him once last time and then broke away, practically running up to the compartment door. It opened, spilling out a flutter of giggles that engulfed her and swallowed her up. The door closed behind her, and she was gone.

John was left with the very distinct feeling of having been obviously abandoned.

“Well, what do we do now, Socks?” he asked the little brown owl in her cage. Socrates blinked at him but had no reply, a true insult to the fabled wisdom of her species. 

 

 

Every compartment John looked in seemed full of people by now; either with older kids who knew each other or new first-years chatting amiably, making friends. Already twice John had had his life threatened, almost getting run over by a girl chasing a cat down the hall, shouting, “Toby, Toby, you get back here this instant!” as if it would make a difference. The second time he’d almost gotten squashed by a Hufflepuff boy’s runaway trunk as it barrelled down the hall, having somehow sprouted legs. There was an older Slytherin boy who smiled at him and offered to help him with his trunk, but Harry had always said Slytherins were cheaters and liars and just the worst, so John politely told him thank you but no thank you, he could manage. Besides, while that boy had seemed nice enough, the large, silent company he kept terrified John, and he was all too happy to be on his way.

John was running out of options. He was almost all the way to the end of the car and the train would start moving soon regardless of whether or not he found a seat. Biting his lip, he opened the compartment door, and breathed relief when he saw it was empty save for one boy sitting by the window. 

He didn’t have on any House colours, so he was a first-year, then. He was slight, scrawny, even, with a wild mop of dark curls atop his head. He sat oddly, with his knees drawn up to his chest on the seat, and his fingers steepled together underneath his chin, as if in prayer. He was bundled up in a long dark blue scarf - maybe he wanted to be in Ravenclaw? He appeared to be asleep. A large owl in a cage dozed next to him. It [opened its eyes](http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs23/f/2007/315/1/8/The_Great_Grey_Owl_by_la_niebla.jpg) to peer at John curiously when he entered, and then, after giving him a sort of up-and-down, closed its eyes again.

John cleared his throat politely, but the boy gave no response. He really was sleeping, then, and not just resting his eyes. John wondered whether it was nicer to ask him if he could join him, or to let him sleep in peace. Considering that this was probably the last somewhat empty compartment in the train and he didn’t quite fancy spending the journey sitting in the hall or a closet or toilet somewhere, he decided upon the latter. 

He pulled his trunk into the compartment and settled Socrates down on the seat beside him. He took a seat across from the sleeping boy so that he could look out the window, too. The whistle blew and after the first lurch the train began to chug, pulling away from the station.

He was on the opposite side of the train from the platform, so he could not wave to his parents even though he knew for sure that they were waving at the train as departed, saying goodbye to him and Harry, calling out that they loved them. It was the first time John had ever been away from his parents. There was a funny feeling in his throat and as much as he swallowed, he couldn’t seem to get rid of it.

He reached into his pocket, now that he was alone, and gently fingered the soft ear of the small stuffed puppy toy that he’d carried onto the train with him. It was embarrassing, he knew, to still have a stuffed animal at eleven, but he’d had Gladstone ever since he was a baby and he didn’t know how he could possibly sleep without him. Especially since he’d be so far from home…

The Hogwarts Express must travel very fast. The trees and buildings looked so very blurry through the window; it all made John blink rapidly.

There were so many things to worry about. Would the other kids like him? Would he make any friends? What if he was rubbish at magic? And oh god, where was he going to be Sorted? If he got Slytherin mum would kill him! Or at least, Harry would. And she’d said if he was a Hufflepuff (as she was sure he was, because he was so clumsy and daft) he was stuck doing her chores for eternity, because Hufflepuffs were industrious and loved working hard. Either way it was terrible, and once it happened it couldn’t be undone; mum had been a Gryffindor as well, and they’d been so proud of Harry, he’d hate to disappoint them…

“Gryffindor,” the boy said suddenly, his voice loud and clear. John jumped, startled.

“Excuse me?” said John.

“Gryffindor, that’s you,” the boy clarified, opening his eyes to give John the onceover. His eyes were startlingly blue.

“Well, that’s nice of you to say, and I really hope so, but…” John trailed off, wondering if this boy somehow had the power to read his mind. 

“No, you are,” the boy replied with certainty. “You favour your left side when you walk, a slight limp from a recent injury. It’s not something that bothers you or slows you down, really, and you are in good physical condition otherwise. You roll your ankle gingerly when you sit, something taught in physical therapy, an ankle injury, not a broken leg then, and your light tan shows that you spend a lot of time outdoors, for many hours in the summer months, which was the only way that you could possibly tan like that. Which means the mechanism is likely sports. You have no trouble pulling your trunk, though, you have good upper body strength, especially in your right arm, likely built up from using crutches. No Skele-Gro for you, then, so you’re Muggleborn or at least Half. But you’ve strapped your wand at your side in the ready position like older wizards do, even though you’ve never used it, even though you wouldn’t have the faintest clue what to do with it once you had it, you’re still ready to draw it at a moment’s notice. You are ready for danger. That makes you either very brave or very stupid. Probably both. You came in here on your own, and you’re not afraid of me, and you’re upset but you’re trying to hide it - you miss your parents already - so you’re brave, and loyal - what more do you need? Have I got anything wrong? Gryffindor.”

“Wow!” John exclaimed, breathless with exhilaration. “That was brilliant!”

“Oh.” The boy blinked, taken aback. “That’s not what people usually say.”

“What do people usually say?”

“Shut up.”

“That’s terrible,” John said, and truly he was horrified. This seemed like a sort of magic in itself, but it was all things that could be solved through logic - a magical  _brain. “_ Are people really afraid of you?”

“‘Of course they are,” said the boy, and drew himself up a little bit higher. “That’s why this compartment is entirely empty.” He said it as if it were such a blatantly obvious fact that John should have felt stupid, but he didn’t. The idea that anybody would be afraid of this amazing boy was stupid. “Haven’t you any idea who I am?”

“No…?” John said. “Should I…?”

“I’m Sherlock Holmes,” the boy declared, as if this were a very impressive thing. John and Socks both blinked at him, nonplussed.

“Well, nice to meet you, Sherlock, I’m —”

“Yes, yes, John H. Watson,” Sherlock replied, rolling his eyes.

“Wow! Did you deduce that, too?”

“It says so on your trunk.”

“Oh,” said John. That was considerably less impressive, and he felt a little embarrassed for it. He absentmindedly touched Gladstone in his pocket. He wondered if Sherlock’s luggage said his name as well, but all it had was SH carved all fancy into it with a crest, which really didn’t give John any clues, so he didn’t feel bad about it. His name could have been Sherringford, or Shirley, for all he knew. 

“What is that?”

“What?” John said, quickly drawing his hand away.

“There’s something in your pocket of interest. Let me have it.” He held out one pale hand, open palmed. John stared, appalled at his lack of manners.

“No!” he said firmly, pulling away. “It’s mine.”

This seemed to shock Sherlock. Had anyone ever told him ‘no’ before? He pouted at John for a second before his demeanor changed entirely.

He gave John a sudden, winning smile, disconcerting and unsettling from the very solemn boy who had been sitting there before him up to this point. “Well, of course it’s yours,” he said, very nicely. John found his voice rather soothing. “I only mean to look at it a little. May I? Please. John.”

“Promise you won’t laugh,” John said, still pulled away.

“Well that’s a stup—” Sherlock began, the blush of irritation showing. He cleared his throat and smiled at John again. No one had really smiled at John that way before, and he was too young to know any better. “I mean,  why would I laugh? I won’t. I promise.” 

“Okay, fine,” John said, and slowly extracted Gladstone from his pocket. He was a [blue and white plush](http://stores.melaniesemporium.com/media/03/a64735d12fb815d2f29f9a_m.jpg), although the white was admittedly more off-white over time, not as soft as he used to be from several washings. “Be careful with him,” he warned.

“Oh!” Sherlock said, and did not make fun of John for still having a doll at eleven years old. Instead he turned the puppy over and over in his hands, very carefully, as if he were made of glass instead of soft fibres.

“There’s a button on it, what does it do? Does it explode?” Sherlock asked. He was suddenly very intrigued, with his thumb stroking over the raised part of the paw pad. 

“Umm…He used to make a barking noise,” John explained, cheeks warm with how babyish the toy was. But it wasn’t Gladstone’s fault that that was the way he was designed.

“Ah,” said Sherlock. “Has the spell worn off?” 

“Oh, no, it was batteries!”

“Bat-teries?” Sherlock sounded the word out carefully. “Tell me about bat-teries.”

It occurred to John then that Sherlock must have been from one of those pure-wizarding families if he hadn’t heard of batteries. That made him all the more impressive; even if mum was magic, they certainly hadn’t been raised that way, and it was like Sherlock was a magical creature, like Merlin from one of John’s books. 

He smiled, also, because that meant that there was a lot that he knew about that Sherlock didn’t. “Well, I don’t know too much about how they work, but they use them to power small machines, like torches and toys and ‘lectric razors and stuff like that. They come in different sizes and provide energy, and they eventually run out. There’s a negative side and a positive side and when they get old they might leak or explode and the acid inside will burn you so you mustn’t play with old batteries.” 

The entire time he spoke, Sherlock paid rapt, unblinking attention to him. “Fascinating!” he declared. “Negative and positives and they have acid inside. And they can explode. You must get me some batteries.” 

“Okay,” said John, with a nice, warm feeling in his chest. He’d ask for them in his first letter home. He’d write it tonight.

“What’s his name?” Sherlock asked, glancing back at the soft puppy. He pet it absentmindedly, as if it were a real puppy.

John wanted to know how Sherlock knew that he’d named it, but Sherlock was clearly magical (extra-magical, really) and instead he told him, “It’s Gladstone.”

Sherlock nodded in response, as if he approved. He handed Gladstone back to John and then hopped off the seat to go rummage in his trunk. From what John could see of its contents, it was an absolute mess, filled with odd bits and ends and potion bottles, nothing like the neatly-packed trunk his mum had prepared for him.

“It’s perfectly acceptable to have companions that can’t talk back,” Sherlock declared, hair a bit wild when he turned around. “Those that talk back often waste the ability with the most inane speech, and they’re absolutely horrid company.”  John liked the way he talked, like how people spoke in books or in movies. He didn’t know anybody his age who talked the funny, proper way Sherlock did. Maybe it was because he’d been homeschooled. Sherlock opened up his hands and presented John with something of his own: a human skull.

“This is Billy. Billy, John,” Sherlock introduced.

“Wow!” John said, peering in. “Is it real?” 

“Of course he’s real, what else would he be?” Sherlock scoffed. “You may touch, if you like.”

“Who was it?” John asked, reaching out to smooth a hand over the cranium. It was so surreal, so disturbing and yet so cool at the same time that it was a real human skull.

“A great, powerful wizard,” Sherlock said, emphatically. “Well, that or a Muggle who stupidly wandered into some magical crossfire. I haven’t decided yet.”

“Mm hmm,” John said, fingers tracing the thin lines in the skull’s plates.  

 ”And this, this is Mycroft,” Sherlock said, handing Billy off to John so he could present his (very, very large owl) with a grand flourish. Sherlock moved around a lot when he was excited. “He’s my great, big, fat dumb owl.”

“They say owls have wisdom, but that’s erroneous,” Sherlock continued. “They’re not any wiser than any other type of bird or creature with similar brain size, which of course is miniscule. They have great big bodies but these puny little brains. Crows are actually the smartest bird.” 

 _“_ I thought so,” John whispered, leaning in conspiratorially, with one hand raised to his mouth. “But don’t tell Socks that!”

“Illogical, but okay,” Sherlock said. He took Billy back from John and placed him carefully onto the seat. “I like to play the violin when I’m thinking. Sometimes I don’t talk for hours on end. Would that bother you? Potential friends should know the worst about each other.”

“ _You_ wannabefriendswithme?” John squeaked.  

“Isn’t it obvious?” Sherlock replied, rolling his eyes. John didn’t mind.

“No,” said John, decisively.

It was Sherlock’s turn to squeak, then. “ _What?_ ”

“You asked if I minded you playing violin and not talking. No, I don’t mind.”

“Oh,” said Sherlock, visibly relieved. John smiled. “That’s all right, then,” Sherlock said. He smiled tentatively back at John, an expression that was slow, a great deal shyer than before and slightly crooked, almost unsure. It was nothing like that great big toothy smile he’d given John earlier, but this one made John feel warm all over.

“Do you like Bakewell tarts?” John asked, pulling out the package that his mum had packed for him earlier. 

“I do,” Sherlock said. “But Mycroft  _loves_  them. He’s got a really bad sweet tooth, that’s why he’s so great and fat.”

“Then an extra tart for the big fat owl with the sweet beak,” John said, handing Sherlock two tarts. Sherlock laughed at his stupid joke, and John felt like he’d just scored a goal in rugby.

Maybe Hogwarts wouldn’t be so scary, after all. 

* * *

It turned out that Hogwarts was a lot scarier than anyone had ever told John it would be. Not even Harry had said it was scary, and she loved to tell him things like that. One time she’d graphically described A Nightmare on Elm Street to him in all its bloody, gory glory and he had spent the next six months sleeping with a cricket bat, all too ready to pummel whatever monsters came his way.

If John thought that the Hogwarts Express was big like elephants and gods were big, well, Hogwarts castle itself was big like it had been built to house elephants and gods and elephant-gods. 

It wasn’t scary the way that monsters were scary, it was more…that word, intimi-dating. Like people could be, and as Mum had said, you musn’t be intimidated. It always made John think of some sort of bizarre ritual of dating, which made perfect sense to him, since all dating was weird and foreign.

“Sherlock,” John whispered, tugging at the sleeve of the other boy’s robe to get his attention. Sherlock had been looking around, completely captivated by his surroundings. John wanted to know what he thought. “Sherlock,” he whispered again, because Sherlock was so absorbed that he didn’t seem to register the fact that he was being called. John did not care for being so blatantly ignored and finally grabbed Sherlock’s arm, shaking him a little. “Sherlock!” Startled, he turned to John, “What, John, what is it?”

John grandly disappointed them both with nothing more interesting or important to say than, “Wow!” 

“Yes,” said Sherlock, nodding slowly. “Yes, that is a sound.” 

But then Sherlock grew quiet again, because, really, wow was the only word for it. Sherlock was used to castles and magic and portraits that were people and not even t.v.s but real people and despite all this Sherlock went quiet and it was a  _wow_ quiet. 

The first years were ushered into the Great Hall, and there was so much to stare at, the floating candles and the ceiling that looked like a night sky. The Sorting Ceremony was about to begin, and John felt his heart do a thing where it was apparently trying to escape his body in any way possible. Oh, he knew Sherlock had said Gryffindor, and Sherlock was amazing. He believed Sherlock, really he did. But what if he was wrong? What if John was sorted Hufflepuff, or worse, Slytherin? Harry had told him all about Slytherin - that was where all the Dark wizards came from. Mum didn’t like to talk about Dark wizards or Dark times, but Harry had come home brimming full of gruesome information, with John her eager little sponge.

He wondered if the Hat took requests.  _Not Slytherin, not Slytherin,_  he’d fervently wish.  _Anything but that._

 _  
_The Hat came out and performed a song. It was a very nice song, but the idea of an animated musical hat suddenly made John concerned for the hats he’d abused over the years (lost and dirtied and occasionally destroyed), and whether they got together in the closet to hold a cappella concerts when not occupying someone’s head.

“Ravenclaw,” said Sherlock as Aaron A. Ackerson took his seat.

“RAVENCLAW!” shouted the hat.

“Hufflepuff,” Sherlock said, of Hermia Alexander. She wore glasses and and had long dark hair. John guessed Ravenclaw. 

“HUFFLEPUFF!” shouted the hat.

“Amazing!” John grinned at Sherlock.

This continued on in this order - a Gryffindor, a Hufflepuff, a Slytherin (John could have guessed that one, that boy looked awfully suspicious), Ravenclaw, Gryffindor, Slytherin, with Sherlock guessing and John guessing, too, but Sherlock always got it right. 

John wanted to ask Sherlock what House that he thought he’d end up in. (Or rather, what House Sherlock  _knew_ he’d be in.) He was obviously brilliant, so probably Ravenclaw. That wouldn’t be bad. But maybe, just _maybe_  Sherlock was secretly brave. Maybe they could both be brave together, and go on adventures. Maybe they could play Quidditch together on the same team,  and take all the same classes and see each other every day…

“Maybe we’ll get to be in the same House?” he whispered to Sherlock. 

“Dubious,” said Sherlock, but he looked vaguely pleased at the thought. Well, at least John thought he looked pleased. He wasn’t frowning or looking sullen or anything like that. He looked at John in that odd, unsettling way he had, and his lips quirked just a tiny bit.   

H was before W, of course, so John would have to wait. “Sherlock Holmes!” they called out, and if Sherlock felt anything - nervousness, excitement - he didn’t show it. John held his breath as Sherlock walked up and took a seat on the stool, glancing up at the hat with interest. Meanwhile, John’s heart was doing its best imitation of a little toy drum, the kind with a monkey doll attached to it, banging away.

  _Gryffindor, please, Gryffindor,_ John chanted inside his head. Of course it was probably Ravenclaw. That was what made sense. He wondered what the hat saw when they placed it on your head. Did it see all your thoughts, picked through the type of person you were? It must. What did the inside of Sherlock’s brain look like? 

It was probably messy in there, because the hat seemed to  be taking a very long time. Maybe it was trying to decide whether to put Sherlock in Gryffindor or Ravenclaw, because surely it knew that it would be a crime to deprive them of a future full of adventures, of winning Quidditch matches together and winning the House Cup. It would be a travesty. It should be illegal, really.

“SLYTHERIN!” shouted the hat.

John felt like the monkey banging on his heart suddenly broke down. He felt his heart drop away. 


	2. Chapter 2

 

Hogwarts had a serious problem: it was swarming with idiots. It was  _crawling_  with idiots. There was a positive _infestation_  of idiots. **  
  
****Fact:**  there were probably more idiots in Hogwarts than all of the owls, house elves, and local population of Magical fauna combined.  
  
Sherlock didn’t know why this came as a surprise to him.  
  
He had been bamboozled, he supposed, by the sophisticated magic that was woven into the castle infrastructure. The protection wards surrounding Hogwarts, the wards that prevented Apparition; they were beautiful, intricate spells put into place eons ago, that had stood the test of both time and Darkness. But then there were the more simple things that fascinated him as well - the moving staircases, the enchantments on the ceiling of the Great Hall, even the floating candles were all dependent upon complex spells that took years of study to perfect.   
  
In short, Sherlock Holmes had been too distracted by all the pretty, shiny things floating around that he had somehow missed the very obvious truth about the whole place. For shame.

  
It was not that Hogwarts wasn’t grand - for it was - and even he, at eleven years old, could sense the powerful magic tied into it, rooted into its foundation, drenching its walls. It was that he had forgotten about  _people_ , ghastly, awful,  _boring_  people that lived in it, and breathed in it, and touched it and thought their sluggish, stupid thoughts in it. It was all indescribably horrid, and he realised that that he had to spend the next seven years of his life locked up with morons. 

There had been one whole person, so far, whose company he thought that he could reasonably tolerate. Sherlock had never had a living, human friend before (Mummy and Mycroft didn’t count) and he was curious to see what it might be like. John had seemed like a good candidate - he might not have been very intelligent, but he was more so than most, and he hadn’t been afraid of Sherlock. He had also very much wanted to be friends, which had surprised Sherlock in its novelty. Mummy had always said that he was a precocious child, who simply needed more mature company and perhaps did not function well in social situations. The horrified parents of his hapless playmates had deemed him a “holy terror,” as well as other words that Sherlock was absolutely forbidden to repeat, in both polite company and impolite ones.

Sherlock had never understood what the big fuss was all about. Hair, after all, always grew back. As did fingernails. And if any teeth had ever been lost, well, they’d only been  _baby teeth_. 

All the same, he had not spent his childhood with many playmates.

John had seemed different. He had been  _impressed_  by Sherlock, and perhaps Sherlock was a little more vulnerable to flattery than he would care to admit. 

That had all changed when he’d been Sorted; he knew that look of crushing disappointment on John’s face, the sudden glimmer of instinctive fear. When he’d taken his seat at the Slytherin table, he’d indulged himself in a single glance back. Their eyes met for just a moment, and then John dropped his gaze, obviously uncomfortable.  Sherlock had not looked back since.

He should have known it was too strange to last. It was for the best, as he liked his own company - he preferred talking to intelligent people. 

He should have felt a resounding internal roar of triumph, then, when he saw John two days later in the Great Hall, laughing with his new friends at the Gryffindor table. Because he had known that that would happen, eventually, either once Sherlock was Sorted Slytherin or when John learned about his reputation. John was very normal -  _boring_ , Sherlock corrected himself - and he smiled a lot, at everybody and everything and at nothing and people like that made friends very easily, because people were idiots.  People like that generally did not like to be friends with Sherlock, because they were scared that he would Curse them or something.

(It had only happened  _once_  and it was an  _accident_  due to a slight miscalculation, and it had been  _years_  ago! Honestly, one would think people would be a little more forgiving of a six-year-old. )  
  
Regardless, John found new friends and if he thought at all about the boy that he’d met on the train, the boy that he’d wanted to be his Housemate, he made no indication of it. Sherlock hadn’t seen him between classes at all. During mealtimes Sherlock watched John laugh it up with his new mates, sitting with his back to the Slytherin table.   
  
Typical Gryffindor.   
  
Sherlock was right, after all. He was always right. Being right made him happy. It was a reassurance that the universe was a logical place.  
  
He told himself he was very pleased with being right, as he thought up new and innovative ways for people to die.  


* * *

  
  
Potions class was shared with Gryffindors, and Sherlock had very mixed feelings about this, because he loved Potions and he did not, so much, like Gryffindors.  
  
He had not come to school with an innate hatred of Gryffindors, really, the way that they had seemed to all come to school with anti-Slytherin prejudice. It was as if they had all been read bedtime stories of the Big, Bad Dark Wizards and how that they had all come from Slytherin and there had been Dark Times.   
  
Sherlock had not come to school with an innate hatred of  _anybody_. Disdain, certainly. He had profound  _dislike_ and  _disinterest_  and  _disgust_  for stupid people, but it weren’t as if stupidity was designated to one House in particular. (Although it would be so much easier if it were. Then people would at least know which one ought to be razed to the ground.)  
  
His current abhorrence for Gryffindors was borne of their detestable attitude and resulting behaviours to his person. The way they whispered about him so obviously when he swept past, and the way the more idiotic ones - like that third-year, Powers - saw fit to knock over his books or hiss “freak” at him in the halls.  He also despised their tendency to band together and laugh and to steal away potentially interesting people who might have been friends once if not for the pathetic House bigotry.  
  
He found a seat by himself in a bench near the front, because he wanted to be up close for the lesson. Immediately he opened up  _Moste Potente Potions_  and began to study The Draught of Sleeping Death. It seemed like it could prove useful.   
  
“Sherlock?”   
  
Sherlock knew who it was without even looking, so he took a moment to let John fidget. It was brave of him, to come over to the Slytherin side of the room, with everybody watching and judging.  
  
“Can I help you?” he asked, finally glancing up.   
  
“I didn’t think we would have any classes together,” John said, and offered him a shy sort of smile that made Sherlock scowl because it made him feel funny. “I don’t suppose you’d want to be partners?”   
  
Sherlock opened his mouth and shut it again. He hadn’t exactly predicted this and wasn’t quite sure how to respond.  
  
“Oi, John, what’re you doing?” shouted a scrawny boy with brown hair and glasses. (Half-blood, raised with magic, parents divorced, lives with grandmother.) “That’s the  _Slytherin_  side of the classroom! Gryffindors over here! Come on, we’ve saved you a seat and everything!”   
  
“Jaaaawwwwnnnn, come aaaaawwwwnnnnn,”  whined another boy, dark-skinned with black hair and currently pawing at the table. (Comes from old Wizarding family, but not affluent, middle child, Cannons fan.) “You’re supposed to be my partner. I even gave you my pumpkin pasty as insurance!”  
  
John turned and laughed, and said, “What? I thought you let me have it because you  _liked_  me! I didn’t know it was a bribe!”  
  
This was what they called banter, Sherlock observed. Because they were friends and that was what friends did with each other.     
  
They were all so very  _Gryffindor_  and all so very  _boring_.   
  
“Well, Sherlock?” John asked, turning back to him. He had a hopeful look on his face, blue eyes trusting and wide. It made Sherlock want to smack it.  
  
“No, thank you,” Sherlock replied icily. “You’re far too slow to be able to keep up with me in any sort of project. You’d only get in the way and impede my progress. Potions is a very exact magic. One little mistake or missed measurement could ruin the whole brew, and it would take  _hours_  to re-do it.”  
  
“O-oh,” John said, and his little face crumpled. It was as if Sherlock had taken all the bright hope and crushed it in his own fist. “I…I suppose you’re right, I mean, you  _are_  very smart, and I’ve…I’ve never tried to brew a potion before, so I don’t even know if I’m any good…and it’s…easy to muck it up…”  
  
“Exactly,” Sherlock said.  
  
“Well, guess…guess I’ll see you around, then,” John mumbled, hiding his face. In that instant, Sherlock wanted to take it all back. Yes, please, be my partner, come sit right here next to me, I’ve saved this seat for you.  
  
But then John’s friends were calling him back over, were making jokes and faces and they were laughing and before Sherlock could say anything, really, John had very quickly walked away.  
  
“You’re friends with  _him_?” he heard one of John’s friends whisper far too loudly to be discreet.   
  
He had done the right thing. It would have never worked out. People like John were not friends with people like Sherlock, they were friends with other normal people who wanted to do normal, boring things and he was just saving them both from the inevitable. It was better this way.   
  
Sherlock watched John sit down, laughing again now, cheerful again, and he knew that he was right. He should have felt very happy and pleased with himself.   
  
Instead there was an odd hollowness inside, a disgusting feeling, an absolutely detestable feeling. Sherlock swallowed and concentrated hard and he pushed it all the way down, deep far down inside, until it reached a place where it didn’t bother him anymore.  


* * *

  
  
Sometimes the enemies came from within one’s own ranks. Victor Trevor had stolen all of Sherlock’s books and hidden them again, and although it had taken Sherlock only fifteen minutes to deduce all the possible hiding places, this time he had baked  _Moste Potente Potions_  into a pudding. That was Sherlock’s favourite. Why couldn’t it have been  _Hogwarts: A History_? (Although, to be fair, that would have been a rather impressively sized pudding.)  
  
With that, Sherlock decided that he’d had enough of school. He’d given it the old college try, and now it was time to go home.    
  
He opened his trunk and started tossing things haphazardly inside of it, occasionally missing and generally making a great big mess of the dormitory. He decided he liked it. Messes were satisfying.   
  
“And now what are you doing?” Mycroft asked from the doorway. Sherlock scowled at him, at his height and at his shiny Head Boy badge.  
  
“Mycroft, don’t be  _tedious_ ,” Sherlock said. He threw a bundle of quills into the trunk as if it were a javelin.  
  
“Ah. And where, do you suppose, are you going to run away to?”  
  
“Home, obviously,” Sherlock replied. “Mummy said she would miss me terribly when I went to school. Now she won’t have to.”   
  
“And you don’t think Mummy would rather you get a proper education?”  
  
“I can still be educated. There was nothing wrong with my education up until this point. We’ll call the tutors back and you can teach me when you come home from school, just like always. We can get Mrs Moira to come back. I liked her.”  
  
“Mm hmm,” said Mycroft. “So the incident where a certain someone set her robes aflame, that was an accident, then?”  
  
“Yes, of  _course_!” Sherlock cried, throwing his hands up in the air. “Why do people have to keep  _asking_  me that?”  
  
“Even if we could convince anyone to tutor you for any extended period of time, you’re not going to be taught all the essentials of magic and wizardry from tutors, Sherlock. You need the structure of a wizarding institution.”  
  
“I shall transfer, then! This is a terrible school, Mycroft. They don’t even offer a course in Piracy. Durmstrang offers a course in Piracy, don’t they? That’s where the Viking wizards came from.”  
  
“If you really think you’ll be happier at Durmstrang, then I shall speak to Mother about it. It is very cold there, however, and you shall have to wear a hat.”

  
“I despise hats!” Sherlock announced to the world at large. Indeed, he had declared a war on hats three years ago, when Mummy had wanted him to wear one for a family portrait. So Durmstrang was out, then, even if they  _did_ maybe have Piracy as part of the curriculum.   
  
Sherlock threw himself face-down on the bed. “aaarrrgrghhhuuuuuffffff,” he said into the pillow, a sound of general frustration.  
  
Everything was so hateful. Everyone was so idiotic.    
  
Mycroft sat down on the bed and put a hand on his back, rubbing up and down in soothing strokes, the way he used to do when Sherlock was smaller and had gotten sick or hurt.  
  
Sherlock bristled. He was not a  _baby_. He was not a  _kitten_  that needed petting. But he was too full of hate for everything to have the actual energy to pull away, so he lay there and let it happen.  
  
“Victor Trevor hid your books again, didn’t he? It’s only the first week of school.”  
  
“He baked  _Moste Potente Potions_  into a  _pudding_!” Sherlock told the pillow. “There are crumbs and stains all over the pages! People will think _I eat puddings off my books_! Even if that’s the clearly  _wrong_  conclusion, they’ll think that, because they’re stupid!”  
  
“Mm,” said Mycroft sympathetically.  
  
“Give him detention,” Sherlock demanded. “You can do that, can’t you? Give him detention in the Forbidden Forest with raw steaks tied to him.”  
  
“I’m afraid that’s beyond my ability, Sherlock.”   
  
Mycroft was  _smiling_. Sherlock still had his face buried in the pillow but he could tell when Mycroft was  _smiling_ , as if this whole affair were all very  _amusing_ , which it was most decidedly not. This was Sherlock’s  _life_  they were discussing here, his trials and tribulations.  
  
“What’s the point of having power if you can’t do anything  _useful_  with it?” Sherlock bemoaned.   
  
“Well,” said Mycroft, “I promise you that one day I’ll have the power to have people thrown into the Forbidden Forest for you, how about that?”  
  
“ _Hmph_ ,” mumbled Sherlock, wallowing in his misery. On top of everything else, he now had to deal with the idea of having a completely useless overachieving brother, as well, who thought that the cure for everything was just sitting here and doing nothing and rubbing his back in a most annoying manner.

And Mycroft had forgotten the raw steak part of the punishment, which was the true stroke of genius.   
  
He didn’t tell Mycroft about John. What did Mycroft need to know about John? He had nothing to tell him, really. It wasn’t like they were friends or anything. It wasn’t like they would be, because Sherlock was a very intelligent person, and he knew how these things generally worked out.  
  
“Caring is not an advantage,” Mycroft said, very gently, as if Sherlock had spoken anyway.  
  
Sherlock was having none of it.  
  
He sniffed. “I do not  _care_.”  
  
“No, of course you don’t,” Mycroft agreed. Sherlock despised him for being so agreeable.  
  
They were silent for a few more moments. “There  _are_  some things I can do for you,” Mycroft finally said.  
  
“Like what?” Sherlock mumbled.   
  
“Well, for one, I suppose I could make sure that Victor’s broom will royally dump him on his arse every time he attempts to mount it at next week’s flying lesson.”  
  
“Oh, yeah?” Sherlock asked, perking up a little.  
  
“And I suppose that you  _may_  read a chapter in my copy of  _Advanced Potions_  before bed tonight.”  
  
“Only  _one_?”  
  
“Sherlock, they’re fifty-page chapters.”  
  
“ _Two_  chapters, then.”  
  
“One and a half. It’s a school night.”  
  
“Oh,  _fine_ ,” Sherlock sighed. He rolled over, finally, because it was starting to get hot with his face buried in the pillow for so long.   
  
Mycroft stood up, straightening out his robes. He always looked so detestably impeccable. “So, can I trust you to give Hogwarts another try?”  
  
“I shan’t make you any promises,” Sherlock said. “Now bring me  _Advanced Potions_ , it’s a school night and I’ve an early class tomorrow.”


	3. Chapter 3

History of Magic was taught by a  _real. live. ghost._ John did not understand how he was the only one truly impressed by this. Because there was a  _ghost - a real live dead person -_  at the front of the  _classroom_  and these things simply did not happen back home.  
  
Bill was especially unimpressed, but then again, John supposed he would be, since he came from an old Wizarding family and all. He hadn’t even understood why it was so funny that his name was Bill Murray.   
  
“ _I’m_  going to be a real live ghost soon,” Bill whispered to John, “RIP William Murray, he died of boredom from Professor Binns’ class.”  
  
John laughed, and tried his best to stifle the sound, since he’d gotten in trouble, back home, for giggling during class before. He looked over to Mike, on the other side of him, but Mike was fading fast. His eyes held the glazed-over look of zombies or people under hypnosis, and his head dipped like one of those drinking birds, threatening to fall face-first into his inkwell.  
  
“I don’t remember the last time he blinked,” whispered John, concerned.  
  
“Me either,” said Bill. “Do you think he’s dead?”   
  
“Best to make sure,” said John, and pinched Mike solidly on the arm.  
  
“BUH!” Mike started, sputtering. “No, I don’t wanna do cartwheels in the jam! It wasn’t me!”  
  
The entire class turned around to look at them, Mike blinking as he finally woke up and then shrank down in his seat. Bill howled with laughter, fist pounding the table.  John attempted, without much success, to shush Bill as he tried to keep from giggling himself.   
  
Professor Binns cleared his throat, a ghostly sound that was like the scrape of a wooden spoon rattling about in an empty bucket.  
  
“Now, children, behave,” he droned, as his only indication that anything different had happened in the past fifty years.  “And pay attention to the lesson…as we resume… as I was saying, Arawn Ilex was a figure of great controversy…. Undoubtedly one of the most brilliant minds of the past century, he became consumed by darkness, his soul - if indeed we do believe in one, as he performed many experiments to determine the exact nature of a human soul - regardless, all sources can agree that his very being was twisted by his practise of Dark Magic. At the same time, we in the wizarding world, especially Mediwizards, Mediwitches, Healers…and all practitioners of the Healing Arts, have benefited from the results of his experiments which we would not have been able to achieve through ethical means. We ask ourselves now, was it madness, or was it genius?…. Is there a use for Dark Magic, before it corrupts one beyond recognition?…The answer is, of course no.  We will of course not be discussing any usage of Dark Magic in this class, although we will study Dark Wizards….and Goblin Wars…The atrocities that Ilex committed cannot be justified by the benefits we have reaped… During the Great Wizarding War of 1939, Ilex worked behind the scenes, acting as a Healer while still performing his human experiments on the plethora of subjects that warfare provided him. He managed to maintain such a low profile that he was not captured or defeated until many years after the War’s official end, by Great Wizard Gwydion fab Don, in an all-out battle royale that lasted seven days and seven nights… until ultimately the two of them destroyed each other. Turn to page 251, now, class, and we shall begin to read about the potions and spells that now exist as a result of Ilex’s experiments in alphabetical order…”     


 

* * *

 

  
  
“Only Professor Binns could make a lecture about  _Arawn Ilex_  boring!” Bill said afterwards, as they walked back towards Gryffindor Tower after class.  
  
“Who’s Aaron Ill-Legs, anyway?” asked Mike. “I mean, other than a Dark Wizard and all that.”   
  
“It’s Arawn Ilex,” John corrected. “I remember because Ilex sounds like some sort of cream my gran uses.”   
  
Bill gaped at them both. “I mean, Watson can’t know, he’s basically  _Muggleborn_ , but Stamford, you really ought to know better,” he chided. Mike stared back at him blankly. “ _Arawn Ilex_? Come on, you don’t know  _Arawn Ilex_?He’s just about the  _scariest_ _,_  creepiest Dark Wizard there ever was. He’s so creepy that even the scary stories about him have to be censored. Like, if you knew the real facts and details of the stories you’d go  _mad_  with _horror_.”  
  
“Wow,” John said, dutifully awed. A terrible chill ran down his spine, as if he’d backed up into a ghost.  
  
“Oh, by Merlin’s eyebrows, child, do watch where you’re going,” said Nearly-Headless Nick as he floated by behind them.   
  
“Sorry!” John apologised.     
  
“Mum won’t even let me read  _books_  about him,” Bill continued. Bill, as John noted before, was very blasé about ghosts, while John still rubbed his arms up and down to try and get the goosebumps to go down.  
  
“I got Reg to buy me a book, though. It’s got loads of awful pictures in it and big words so you  _know_  it’s all got to be true. When they say human experiments, they mean it, like he cut people up and stuff and sewed them together…to  _each other_. And not just on grown-ups, he experimented on  _kids_ , too. He’d like, slice them open and look at their insides and brew potions out of human parts. And some people say he was a nec…necro-romancer, like he raised the dead and stuff.”  
  
“And made them fall in love with him?” asked John, who was confused by the romance part.  
  
“I don’t know,” Bill said ominously, “but probably.”  
  
“Ew!” cried Mike. “Double ew!”  
  
“Totally ew,” Bill agreed solemnly.   
  
John shuddered, and tried not to think about it. Which, of course, it meant he pictured an undead army of love-hungry zombies who all very much wanted to kiss the Necro-Romancer.  
  
“Anyway, it’s probably good you don’t really hang around that creepy Sherlock Holmes kid,” Bill said. “I was worried when you wanted to go sit next to him in Potions, like maybe he’d cast a spell on you or something.”   
  
“Sherlock’s not creepy!” John was quick to defend. “We met on the train and he was…nice.”  
  
Bill looked largely doubtful of John’s ability to judge character.   
  
“What’s wrong with Sherlock Holmes?” asked Mike. “Well, other than the fact that he’s weird.”   
  
“Sherlock’s not weird,” John said. Bill rolled his eyes.   
  
“All the old Wizarding families know that the Holmes family tree has borne some rotten fruit. Or rather it’s grown from bad seeds. Or it’s rotten at its roots. I forget which it is that Da’s said. Anyway, point is, Holmeses are bad news. They’re all known for being brilliant, the whole lot of them, but weren’t a Holmes alive that wasn’t Sorted Slytherin. They’re sneaky. They know too much. It isn’t healthy. And…” Bill took a breath, pausing for dramatic effect, “Arawn Ilex was a Holmes. Or they’re related at least.”  
  
“No!” said Mike.   
  
“No way!” said John.  
  
“Yep,” said Bill. “Nobody likes to talk about it, because the Holmes family is all rich and powerful, and they do important stuff, and I think their dad’s in the Ministry and  _supposedly_  he’s good. They’ve all kept on the good side for years. But even if they weren’t, even if they didn’t, do you reckon we’d know about it? They have all this money and all these smarts, they could cover up  _anything_  they wanted to!”   
  
Bill looked a little wild. He sounded like one of those people who maybe wore sandwich boards with  **THE END IS NIGH**  painted on them or maybe fashioned funny hats out of aluminium foil.   
  
Except that Bill was from an old Wizarding family, and he spoke with so much authority that John thought he probably knew what he was talking about.  
  
“So do you want to know the creepiest part?” Bill said, lowering his voice to a hush. Of course John and Mike nodded, intrigued. “Sherlock  _looks_  like Arawn. A lot of the pictures of him have been destroyed, because they didn’t want any remnants of him around or hauntings or anything like that. But they say that Arawn had ink black, hair as black as midnight—”  
  
“Sherlock’s hair is actually kind of a really dark brown if you see it in the sun,” John said.  
  
“And he had these pale, frightening eyes that no one knew the colour of-”  
  
“Sherlock’s eyes are greyish blue,” John offered.  
  
“And he was really, really thin and tall.”     
  
“Sherlock’s not really that tall,” John pointed out.  
  
“He’s taller than you,” Bill said.  
  
“Oh come now, that’s not fair,  _everybody’s_  taller than John,” Mike said.  
  
“Hey!” John protested.  
  
“Well, true, I think John might be the shortest boy in our year…” Bill conceded.  
  
“Now _that’s_ not fair!” John pouted. “Mum says I’m still growing…!”  
   
“Well, if you ever want to grow up, you should stay away from Sherlock Holmes,” Bill said decisively. “It’s not just the looks, John. Sherlock does creepy stuff. Everybody knows he did experiments on his playmates. Just ask poor Morwen, she lost  _all_  her teeth when she played with him once, she’ll tell you.”   
  
“Maybe they were baby teeth?” John offered. “I once bit an apple and two teeth came out at the same time.”  
  
“I heard he carries around a human skull,” said Mike.  
  
“Well,” said John, “That’s just Billy.”  
  
“He  _killed_ a  _Billy_?”  Bill squeaked. “How do you know I’m not next?”  
  
“Well, Sherlock just  _calls_  it Billy, I don’t think it’s his actual name. I don’t know the name of the person whose head it belonged in when he was alive,” John said, which somehow, curiously, did not help matters.   
  
“I like my skull where it is, thank you very much,” said Bill.  
  
“I don’t think Sherlock’s going to come after your skull,” John said.  
  
“How do you know?” Bill demanded.  
  
“Well, he’s already got a Billy, hasn’t he?” John  said, matter-of-fact.  
  
“Point,” said Mike.   
  
“I know you think this is all very amusing, Watson, but you need to listen to me,” Bill huffed. “I’m just telling you what everybody knows. Arawn Ilex was skilled in wandless Legilimency. He could look at you and in a second know everything about you, go all the way deep into your mind and discover all your secrets and your desires and secret desires. And even though you don’t believe me, everyone’s seen Sherlock do exactly that!”    
  
“It’s true,” Mike nodded. “I watched him make Sarah cry because he told her her parents were going to split up. Sarah had no idea. She thought her parents were happy. And of course it was true, like he Cursed her or something.”  
  
“Well, that’s not very nice,” John agreed, mouth twisting into a moue. “But it doesn’t mean it’s evil or Dark Magic. I’ve seen him do it. He doesn’t like…read your mind or anything. There are clues! And he figures them out. He sees stuff that we don’t look at. He’s not evil, he’s just really…brilliant.”    
  
“Why are you defending him so much anyway?” asked Bill peevishly. “You don’t even know him. We’re your friends, he didn’t even want you for a Potions partner.”   
  
Sometimes, people said such awful things, that it was like they had this knife or an icicle or some very sharp object that they could stab straight into your heart. John’s face scrunched up and his lower lip trembled, ever so slightly.   
  
“He’s sorry, John!” Mike interjected quickly. “He didn’t mean it!”  
  
“Yeah!” Bill said, stepping forward, hands held out placatingly. “I mean, it’s cause I like you, and you’re my friend, and you’re so much better than…than  _him_. I don’t want to see you get hurt any more! Or Cursed, or killed, or _worse_. You don’t know what terrible things he’s capable of, John—”  
  
“ _Bill!_ ” Mike hissed. John turned to see Sherlock walking down the hall, gripping his small stack of books tightly to his chest, head held high.  
  
“H-hey Sherlock!” John greeted, waving. Bill and Mike shrank back, crowding closer to the wall.  
  
Sherlock swept straight on past them, as if he hadn’t heard John at all.   
  
“See?” Bill whispered, once Sherlock was out of sight and he apparently had permission to breathe again. “Pure evil.” 

 

* * *

 

  
John had thus far believed in Sherlock, but Bill and Mike were genuinely concerned for him. It wouldn’t do to make them worry unnecessarily, especially over something so unduly frightening.  So for the next week, John watched Sherlock closely, to look for possible signs of him being a Reincarnation of Pure Evil.  
  
This was what he observed:  
  
On Monday, Sherlock ate alone at the Slytherin table. There were other students at the Slytherin table, of course, but they all seemed absorbed in talking to each other. Sherlock sat surrounded by people, and no one talked to him or even seemed to see him.  
  
John never had to do anything alone. There was always Mike and Bill and sometimes Sarah even though she was a girl. He was getting to know some of the other people in his house, too, like Greg, who always smiled at him. He always had someone to save him a seat somewhere.   
  
When Sherlock walked to classes, no one walked with him. In fact other people, even older students, gave him a wide berth, as if he were a man with a great white beard and a staff, who was capable of parting the ocean.   
  
(Moses, John thought, had probably been a wizard.)    
  
People whispered about Sherlock when he walked through the halls. Sherlock pretended not to hear, but John knew that he did, because Sherlock’s hearing was sure to be very good. It was how he picked up clues. And even if Sherlock didn’t hear, John knew that he could look at you and he’d know exactly what you were thinking, and if you were talking about him.   
  
On Tuesday, they had Potions class. Most people chose partners but Sherlock worked alone.  Sherlock’s copy of _Moste Potente Potions_ , John noted, looked dirty and grease-stained and crumby; it had been pristine and brand-new last week. It made John’s chest twinge to see Sherlock thumbing delicately through the soiled pages. Mike blew up their cauldron because he added four horned slugs instead of three. Sherlock finished early; his potion had a pure golden tone, shimmering and perfect. It was placed in the front of the class as an example of what all their brews were meant to look like.   
  
John wondered what he should  be looking for when he was looking for signs of The Evil. He suspected that he should catch Sherlock doing something horrible, like torturing puppies or something, but as far as he knew there were no puppies at Hogwarts. As for the other pets ( _familiars_ , Bill had corrected him) that were cats and snakes and owls and rats, no students had reported their pets harmed. In fact, John often saw Toby the cat roaming freely through the halls, with his owner chasing after him (he hadn’t learned her name yet, so he thought of her as Toby’s girl). Sherlock showed no interest in other people’s pets (familiars), although John knew he visited the Owlery both days to sneak treats to Mycroft, which was a surreptitious but not evil act. Per these observations, John concluded that the small animal population of Hogwarts was safe, for the time being.     
  
On Wednesday, Sherlock made four people cry on four different occasions. It was not at all a nice or good thing to do.  
  
He did, however, get called “freak” five times, so John supposed that it evened out.   
  
Sherlock showed up only briefly for lunch and dinner. He took a few items of food and then disappeared. Nobody paid much attention. Later John found out that he went to eat alone in the Library.   
  
On Thursday, one of the older Hufflepuff boys attempted to trip Sherlock on his way to class. He was very nearly successful; Sherlock sidestepped only at the last moment, all his books intact.   
  
“You ought to watch where you’re going, Holmes,” the dark-haired Hufflepuff sneered.  
  
“That’s mighty big talk coming from someone who…yes, hm, who still wets the bed,” Sherlock replied. He looked him up and down, scrutinising. He was doing what John was starting to think of as the Sherlock Scan, wherein he tallied up one’s attributes, personal history, and calculated their stats in the matter of minutes.   
  
“Anderson, isn’t it?” Sherlock continued. “I know your type. Secondhand books, hand-me-down robes. Your parents have way more children than they can possibly afford, all of you with the same rat-like faces. You have separation anxiety issues and a blatant case of Middle Child Syndrome.”  
  
Anderson’s face fell for a moment before he turned white with fury. “You little Dark Wizard shit!” he swore. He shoved Sherlock, hard against the wall, causing all his books and scrolls to go flying all over the floor. Anderson stomped on an essay, purposefully grinding the scroll underneath his heel before walking away.  
  
The small crowd of people who had gathered watching the confrontation quickly dispersed, leaving Sherlock in the middle of the hallway, with all his scattered papers and books all around him.  
  
John didn’t even hesitate for a moment. He ran out to help, of course, gathering up the papers and the books and quills that seemed to have spread out in a 5 meter radius.  
  
“Oh, Sherlock, your ink spilled…” John said with utmost sympathy, as one of Sherlock’s carefully written essays was now stained with dripping black. It looked like it had once been Transfigurations homework, judging from the half of the diagram not completely blotted out.   
  
“I don’t need your help,” Sherlock snapped, snatching his books right out of John’s hands. “I don’t need anybody’s help.”   
  
“Okay,” said John, blinking, taken aback by Sherlock’s harsh tone. “But since I’m here, you may as well take it.”  
  
“No,” said Sherlock firmly. “Thanks, but no thanks.” He refused to meet John’s eye, instead furiously re-scrolling one of his opened scrolls. “I’m perfectly fine all on my own.”  
  
“All right!” said John, who was perfectly fine not being helpful if his help was so very unwanted. He got up off his knees. “Fine. You’re fine, I’m fine!”   
  
“And stop following me, it’s creepy,” Sherlock bit out. John’s face heated with embarrassment. Perhaps he hadn’t been as sneaky and Bond-esque as he’d been hoping to be. Perhaps suits of armour and potted plants weren’t as good hiding places as they initially appeared to be.  
  
He thought he ought to apologise, because surely stalking was a rude thing to do. He thought he ought to explain himself, because it was Sherlock’s character and reputation and possibly immortal soul that were at stake.  
  
“Fine!” John said again, instead, and turned and walked away, leaving Sherlock all alone on the middle of the floor.

 

 

* * *

 

  
On Friday, John did not follow Sherlock. Which was why, he supposed, that by the time he walked in, it was far too late.  
  
It was Friday afternoon and there was a crowd gathered near the Library, which was John’s first clue that something was drastically out of sorts.  
  
In the centre of the crowd, Sherlock was on the floor, and Carl Powers had somehow managed to acquire his books and his homework and he now stood above him, taunting him.   
  
Carl was a Gryffindor boy, two years’ John’s senior, in Harry’s class. He was a Beater on the Quidditch team, a position that suited him perfectly. Although John had only known him for a few weeks, Harry had described him as a particularly detestable boy, which was something, since Harry found all boys somewhat detestable. John was inclined to agree when he found the ‘Welcome to Gryffindor, Firstie’ frogs in his bed, courtesy of Carl.   
  
“Hey Sherlock, let’s play Gwydion and Arawn,” Carl was saying, giving Sherlock a little kick. Judging by Sherlock’s ruffled hair and robes, he’d been pushed down to the ground and roughed up.   
  
Sherlock snarled at him and made as if to get up, but he was quickly shoved down again.  
  
  
“Come on, Dark Wizard, admit your defeat! I am the ultimate hero!” Carl crowed triumphantly.  
  
Sherlock’s hand went to the side of his robes. John realised, with a horrible tightness in his throat, that Sherlock was going for his wand.   
  
Carl noticed this as well. “What are you going to do now? Curse me? Dare you. I dare you to do it,” he taunted. “Why don’t you go ahead and show everyone your true evil self?”  
  
Sherlock’s hand trembled and then dropped.  
  
“Yeah, I thought as much,” Carl sneered. “That’s ‘cos you’re pathetic,” he said, and shoved at Sherlock again.  
  
That was it.   
  
Carl was initimi-dating, to be sure, but it was like his Mum said: John must not let anyone make him feel initimidated.   
  
“Why is no one doing anything?” John demanded, pushing his way through the crowd. “Oi! Carl! Stop it!”   
  
“Oh, hello there, Watson,” Carl said, turning around to him, wand out and eyes bright. “Care to join in the festivities? Sherlock and I here were just playing a little game.”   
  
“It’s not funny,” John said, putting himself between Carl and Sherlock. “Stop it. And give Sherlock his books and homework back!”  
  
“Oh come on, John,” Carl said, “We all know about our little Sherlock here. He’s Dark spawn, and someone has to be the hero.”   
  
“You’re not a hero!” John told him, his hands balled into fists at his side. “You’re…you’re a bully, is what you are!”  
  
“Dark Wizard sympathiser!” Carl accused.   
  
“You leave him alone!” John shouted, he didn’t care who heard. He hoped one of the Professors would hear and put an end to all this, but it seemed like help was not coming. None of the students watching seemed inclined to go and run to any of the authorities, either. It was far too entertaining for that.  
  
John and Sherlock were on their own.  
  
“Traitor!” Carl spat back. “House traitor! You’re both filth!”   
  
He gave John a shove to push him to the side, and then made to kick at Sherlock again. In this he made his fatal mistake: he turned his back on John Watson.  
  
And then all of the nearly-5-stone and almost-50-inches of John Watson, smallest boy of their year, launched himself at Carl Powers and descended upon him with a mighty fury that was terrifying to behold. 

 

* * *

 

  
  
“Did I win?” John asked, panting, as he laid out on the cold flagstone floor. “I think I won.” Everything hurt and one eye was already swelling closed. He could feel something warm trickling down his cheek. “Did you hear that? He  _actually_  said, ‘you’ll pay for this Watson!’ when they dragged him off, I didn’t think people actually said things like that, only it sounded like ‘you’ll bay for dis Wadson’ ‘cause I think I broke his nose!”   
  
He grinned up at Sherlock brightly.  
  
Sherlock appeared a little less than grateful. In fact, instead of looking at all grateful, like a normal person would, he had somehow chosen to look furious.   
  
“You  _idiot_ , you bloody idiot!” Sherlock reprimanded him, giving him a little shake. “What do you have brains for if you don’t use them to  _think_? Look at me - just as I suspected! You have a concussion, you idiot!”   
  
John, for all his supposed idiocy, was fairly certain that you really oughtn’t to shake people with concussions like this.  
  
“Nobody bullies my friend,” John said, decisively.  
  
Sherlock looked at him, his mouth dropping open in a comical little ‘o’ of surprise. John relished it. It made the throbbing in his head worth it.  
  
“You’re still an idiot,” Sherlock said after a moment. He gave a little harrumph of exasperation and touched John’s forehead, very gingerly, with the sleeve of his robe, applying light pressure to staunch the bleeding.   
  
“You’re getting your nice robes all bloody,” John said, distressed. He knew how expensive robes were because Mum had stressed that he had to be very careful, and he knew how expensive  _Sherlock’s_ robes surely had to be.  
  
“Idiots are not allowed to offer their idiotic opinions!” Sherlock declared. “At least…not until they’ve sought proper medical care and had plenty of bed rest.”  
  
“Okay,” said John, grinning again now.   
  
“Hmph!” said Sherlock, who felt a need to express his general displeasure. His fingers gently probed John’s swelling left eye; John winced but did not flinch away. “I don’t think anything’s broken. Do you think you can make it to the Infirmary, or do I need to carry you?”   
  
“You’re not all that bigger than me!”  
  
“And you’re not all that big.”  
  
“Mum says I’m still growing…!” John said, indignant, but he allowed Sherlock to help him, slowly, to his feet. Because Sherlock wanted to help, and John was not the type to deny help from his friends when it was offered and given freely. Sherlock wrapped an arm around his waist, and John leaned into the other boy, taking strength from his support as they made their way to the Infirmary together.    


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A million thanks to [blessedjessed](http://archiveofourown.org/users/blessedjessed/pseuds/blessedjessed) for the Brit-pick. xxx <3!!

 

John had never been afraid of the doctor’s, unlike Harry, who had always had to be tricked or bribed into going. Whenever he’d had to have injections and they would tell him that he could look away if he needed to, he always took it as a personal challenge, and would stare directly, defiantly, at the needle that dared to pierce his skin.  
  
“Am I going to have to get stitches?” John asked Madam Pomfrey calmly as she tsk’d over his black eye and the swelling gash on his forehead.  
  
“What are stitches?” Sherlock wanted to know.  
  
“It’s something doctors do to sew up a big cut,” John explained. “Like one time I fell out of a tree and I hurt my leg  and I needed stitches. They give you an injection with a needle so you don’t feel it and then they take a special needle with a special thread and they sew you up. It’s really cool. Want to see my scar?”  
  
Sherlock’s eyes went wide with wonder. He was looking at John as if it had just been revealed that he was actually one of the co-authors of _Moste Potente Potions_.  
  
“Yes!” Sherlock said, nodding. John hiked up his trouser leg with pride, showing off the thin white line on his calf that had once been a nasty, jagged laceration. He’d bled everywhere, and Harry had screamed, and Mum had screamed, and it had been really gross. It’d been brilliant. Sherlock ran his fingers over the scar tissue reverently, and John giggled because it tickled, and then he regretted giggling because it made his face hurt even more.  
  
“ _Can_ he get stitches?” Sherlock asked Madam Pomfrey eagerly.  
  
“Yeah, can I?” asked John, curious to see what Magical stitches would be like. Maybe they would sew themselves, or dissolve into his skin, or maybe they were made of dragon guts or something.  
  
“ _Nobody_ is getting stitches,” said Madam Pomfrey, to two very disappointed boys. “That’s positively barbaric. What you need is a little wound cleaning, an Episkey to fix you right up, and lots of bedrest.”  
  
There was a rack of potions next to the bed, gleaming in their peculiar bottles: reds and blues, greens and golds. John wanted to touch them all; or, even better, try them, to see what they _did_. Madam Pomfrey reached for a deep red one.  
  
“Not that one, you incompetent woman!” Sherlock practically shouted. “That potion stings! You’re going to hurt him!”  
  
“For the last time, it’s Madam Pomfrey, Mr Holmes,” Madam Pomfrey corrected. “Not ‘you incompetent woman.’ The same goes for ‘you silly woman,’ ‘you idiotic woman,’ or anything else of that nature.”  
  
Sherlock scowled at her, and probably thought a lot of rude things, but to his credit, he did not say them. He was only rude with his eyes. His eyes were being downright shocking, and John thought if that look translated into words they would be the type to make his aunt Agatha have one of her famous conniptions.  
  
“Meanwhile, Mr. Watson is a big boy,” Madam Pomfrey continued, “And if he’s big and _‘brave’_ enough to start fights -”  
  
“He did _not_ start it!” Sherlock interrupted hotly.  
  
“-then he is big enough to endure a little mild discomfort,” she finished, nonplussed. Sherlock let out a hiss through his teeth that made John giggle a little; he was doing a rather good impression of a very angry teakettle.  
  
Madam Pomfrey uncorked the bottle. “Violence, Mr. Holmes - and Mr. Watson - is never the answer,” she said. And then she forcibly tilted John’s chin up and proceeded to burn his wound with acid.  
  
John had never been a delicate child. He was not afraid of a little pain. He’d sprained his ankle twice, he had broken it once. He had fallen out of trees and off of bikes, and he’d torn holes in nearly every set of trousers he owned. He was what his mum called a “rough-and-tumble” kind of boy, but he’d had to keep up with Harry, who was a “rough-and-tumble” kind of girl. Between the two of them, the Watsons kept the local chemist’s in business from supplies of Savlon cream and plasters alone.  
  
But when Madam Pomfrey poured the healing potion directly into his wound, it was John’s turn to do an impression of a tea kettle, except the sound that he made was more towards the high-pitched whining end of the spectrum.  
  
"Get it off of him, you incompe-...Pomfrey!" Sherlock cried, and in one swift move, knocked the potion out of her hand so that it spilled, splattering big red drops on white hospital sheets before the bottle clattered on the floor.  
  
“Well, I never!” Madam Pomfrey declared. “Mr. Holmes, control yourself! That’s ten points from Slytherin for misconduct-”  
  
“I don’t _care_ ,” Sherlock declared grandly, already using the sleeve of his robe again to mop up the potion already on John’s forehead. He was dabbing and blotting very hard. It made John wince but at least it didn’t feel as if his flesh were being eaten away..  
  
“-and if you do _anything_ disruptive again I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” Madam Pomfrey finished, cleaning up the potion on the floor with a brisk wave of her wand.  
  
“Are you all right?” Sherlock asked John urgently.  
  
“Mr. Holmes, it was only a little Healing Potion...” Madam Pomfrey sighed. “There’s no need for such high-opera dramatics.”  
  
“Are you all right?” Sherlock insisted, this time giving John a little shake by the shoulders.  
  
“I’m fine, Sherlock, really, it’s okay!” John said, smiling to show that he wasn’t trying to be brave. Sherlock’s eyes narrowed suspiciously as if John were trying to get away with a terrible lie, but then he nodded and released him.  
  
He turned back to Madam Pomfrey. “You should use _Tergeo_ to clean the wound! And then put fresh Dittany on it.”  
  
Madam Pomfrey, as testament to her unending patience, did not even acknowledge Sherlock this time but instead pointed the business end of her wand at John’s face.  
  
“What are you doing to him now?” Sherlock demanded. “And what, exactly, are your accreditations?”  
  
 _“Tergeo!”_  Madame Pomfrey cast. A cool sensation washed over John’s skin as the blood and dirt siphoned off. He stared at Madam Pomfrey’s wand, transfixed.  
  
Sherlock didn’t even miss a beat. "And now you should put fresh dittany on it," he insisted. It was clear that there was no approval for what Madam Pomfrey had done; if anything, she should have done it fifteen minutes ago. "It won't hurt as much."  
  
“Mr. Holmes,” said Madam Pomfrey, “One day, when you grow up and finish school and pass your NEWTs, you too may go to school for Medical Witchcraft  & Wizardry and become a Healer. Until then, why don’t you allow me to properly Heal your little friend, hm?”    
  
Sherlock glared at her, his gaze unwavering. John was starting to see why some students thought he was a frightening person. One day, he might even be terrifying.  
  
"We only have dried dittany," Madam Pomfrey said tightly, but she got out the bottle regardless. "As it is dried, it is not as effective as the fresh herb, which is nowhere as good as an extract or a Potion."  
  
"But it doesn't hurt," Sherlock said.  
  
"Yes, but it has a much slower action time, and I simply do not have the time to sit here, applying direct pressure, while young Mr. Watson slowly heals."  
  
" _I_ have time," said Sherlock, as if he were the owner of all the time in the world, and those who sought to use some had to sign it out from him.  
  
Madam Pomfrey sighed, the long-suffering sigh of a much-beleaguered woman who knew when to cut her losses. She cast a quick _Episkey_ , as promised, and then made Sherlock hold out his hand so she could sprinkle out the allotted amount of dried dittany onto it.  
  
“We’ll spread the dittany over the dressing, like so. And then apply the dressing directly to the wound, and hold it, applying pressure, until the wound closes. If it bleeds through, do not remove the dressing, but instead put another dressing on top of it. Do you understand?”  
  
Sherlock looked at her and nodded, sarcastically slowly, as if you’d have to be a great idiot not to understand. John hadn’t even known it was possible to nod sarcastically. He nodded as well, because he thought it would be helpful to their cause to show solidarity.  
  
“Right, then,” said Madam Pomfrey. She got up briskly, dusting the front of her robes with her hands. “Now, I do have some other students to see. There’s that nasty case of Vesuvian Vomitus that’s been going around this season.”  
  
“I could have told you that,” Sherlock said to John. “You can tell by the way they twitch their noses.  Also, you should stay away from apricots, if you know what's good for you.”  
  
Madam Pomfrey continued on, “The concussion we cannot do much for, medically, except for bedrest and perhaps a potion that will soothe the worst of it. I’ll be back to check on you in a little over an hour, Mr Watson. In the meantime, make sure you keep an eye on _that_ one.”  
  
 _That_ one harrumphed, but did not comment, as he had occupied himself with far more interesting task of making the dressing.  
  
“And after you’re all better,” Madam Pomfrey said, “then perhaps you’ll be in a suitable enough state to meet with your Head of House to discuss your punishment.”  
  
“Punishment?” John squeaked with horror.  
  
“We take fighting amongst students very seriously here at Hogwarts, Mr. Watson. And so early on in the year, too,” Madam Pomfrey reproached. “You don’t seem like that type of boy, but heed my warning that multiple offences shall be met with various disciplinary measures, up to and including expulsion.”  
  
John swallowed; for the first time since arriving at Hogwarts he felt genuine fear. He _couldn’t_ leave Hogwarts! He’d only just gotten here!  
  
“Good riddance,” said Sherlock, when Madam Pomfrey had left the room. John looked at him, reproachful and hurt, until he realised that Sherlock had intended it in regards to Madam Pomfrey, not a Hogwarts sans John Watson.    
  
“Expelled?” John whispered. “Do you suppose she’s serious?”  
  
“She was just posturing. It’s merely an empty threat meant to keep you in line,” Sherlock said blandly, as he pressed the dressing to John’s wound. It tingled faintly over his skin and, oddly, inside.  “Besides, even if it were real,” Sherlock continued, “Mycroft would never let it happen.”  
  
John wondered what Sherlock’s owl could possibly have to do with school disciplinary measures. Then again, ever since the day he’d found out he was a wizard, he’d learned to accept extraordinary things in his life with very little surprise. And anything to do with Sherlock Holmes, it seemed, was extra extraordinary.    
  
Then again, that might have been his concussion talking.  
  
Still, he found Sherlock’s absolute confidence reassuring. The Slytherin boy was holding pressure onto the dressing, and he lifted up an edge of it to look at the cut.  
  
“I could have turned Carl Powers into a newt,” Sherlock said wistfully.  
  
“Sherlock!” John tried to chide. He was sure he was smiling too much for it to be taken seriously. The little giggle he had at the thought certainly didn’t help matters.  
  
Sherlock rewarded him with one of his weird little smiles, the kind that was a little crooked and wonky and strange, like he was an alien trying to imitate human expressions. It was a little funny-shaped and it wasn’t quite happy but it was amused and maybe a bit happy all the same. John realised that this was the first time Sherlock had smiled at him since they’d met.  
  
 “You have to admit it would have been a considerable improvement,” Sherlock said.  
  
“Well, that might be true,” John conceded the point. “But I don’t think you can just go around turning people into newts.”  
  
“Not _people_ , John, just _Powers_. And I certainly don’t see why not. It’s not like they don’t get _better_.”  
  
“Do they?” John asked with great interest, trying to envision what the healing process could look like, people into tiny amphibious creatures and then back again.  
  
“Eventually,” Sherlock shrugged.  
  
It was a fascinating thought for the whole minute that John forgot what Madam Pomfrey had said. When he remembered, he shook his head. “Well, even if they do, I’m sure we’d get in trouble for something like that. Or...or...expelled.”  
  
“I told you not to worry about expulsion,” Sherlock said impatiently. He pressed on the dressing a little harder than necessary for emphasis on each syllable of _expulsion_ and John winced three times. “You’re only in your first year, so it’s all House point deductions and detentions, really. And you don’t think people fight in this school _all_ the time? You don’t think that rules aren’t _constantly_ being broken? The only real difference between the innocent and the guilty is that they can _prove_ that the latter did it.”  
  
It occurred to John that sometimes Sherlock sounded a little like a budding supervillain. Or a master criminal.  At any moment now John expected him to rub his hands together and laugh with maniacal glee.     
  
“So what you are saying,” John said, “is that we could get away with murder as long as we don’t get caught.”  
  
He had only said murder, of course, because that was how the saying went. But Sherlock perked up at the word and turned a look onto him that was very intense and very bright and John really thought that Sherlock was one of the weirdest and most fascinating people he had ever met.  
  
“Tell me everything you know about murder,” said Sherlock, all in one excited breath.  
  


* * *

 

  
It turned out that John did not know much about murder, after all, but he knew about _Muggle_ murder, which was just as good. Not the murder of Muggles part, that was terrible, and really he didn’t think Sherlock was one of _those_ types of Pureblood wizards, considering how much Sherlock had wanted batteries. It was the methods that fascinated Sherlock. Strangulations and knives were dismissed as normal, _boring_ \- but then there was talk of guns, and trapping people in cars, of leaving the stove on to suffocate people in their sleep and people putting their heads in ovens and causing explosions. Sherlock, in turn, told him a particularly fantastic story about how a man had been found dead in his cottage ripped open, and everybody thought it had been his wife, only it had turned out to be his goat, and then the goat turned out to be his wife, and his wife had turned out to actually be a goat. In turn, John shared his theory about how if he had to dispose of a body, he would chop it up and put it in a blender and make a human slurry - and then he’d spent another fifteen minutes explaining blenders to an especially inquisitive Sherlock.  
  
While they talked, Sherlock held the dressing to John’s wound with one hand and a mirror with the other.  When he got tired they switched off. The mirror was so that John could watch his own wound heal, which had been John’s idea. He hadn’t even worried when he’d made his request - both his mother and Harry could not stand the sight of blood, and most people told him it wasn’t right to want to look at gross stuff like that.  Sherlock, instead, had acted like it was the most normal thing in the world to want to watch one’s own head wound slowly knit itself together (and really, why wouldn’t you?) and had been pleased that John had taken an interest as well.  
  
Madam Pomfrey returned after a while, as she had said she would do, and this time she brought a steaming vial of  greenish-brown potion. Sherlock first took her to task for being ten minutes later than she said she would be, and then he demanded to know what was in the potion and every step to making it, and then he wanted to know if somehow the ingredients could have been tampered with, unbeknownst to her.  
  
“I assure you, Mr. Holmes, I am not trying to poison Mr. Watson,” Madam Pomfrey said, with such supreme calmness that John greatly admired her.  
  
“I didn’t say _you_ necessarily were,” Sherlock replied, rolling his eyes. “It could be _anybody_. It needn’t even be intentional; it could be a result of gross negligence.”  
  
Sherlock then demanded to see her accreditations again and then insinuated that she had been late because she’d stepped out to flirt with the Flying Instructor, and finally she’d gotten so aggrieved that Sherlock very nearly got himself thrown out of the Infirmary.  
  
John was very glad that Sherlock seemed to finally learn some sense in the last five seconds. His whole voice changed and he managed a quite contrite, “I’m sorry,” which made Madam Pomfrey soften. It would have been awfully boring in the Infirmary without Sherlock, especially since John was to stay overnight for observation.  
  
John took his potion without fuss, although he made a face because it tasted like it looked: all mashed up leaves and bitter, salty slugs. Or, at least, what he imagined slugs to taste like.  
  
“What kind of sweets do you have?” he asked Madam Pomfrey, because this was a staple of every hospital or doctor’s visit he’d ever had. He was certain that there was a supply closet somewhere in every hospital and clinic that was purely for shelving sweets, while the bandages and plasters and needles all lived somewhere else.  
  
Madam Pomfrey, however, did not seem to be aware of this sort of very crucial medical equipment. John was very disappointed, until Sherlock - forgetting his promise to behave - needled her about her inability to properly provide for her patients until she eventually came up with a small bag of Bertie Botts’ Every Flavour Beans that had been left behind by a previous patient. Sherlock deemed this as acceptable and dismissed her. It would have been amazing that she actually left when told, if not for the fact that she was only too happy to do so.  
  
The potion made John’s eyes feel very tired, and he leaned back against the pillows to close them for a bit. Sherlock was describing how one could accurately distinguish between Tangerine, Toffee, and Earwax beans, and John thought that this was a very important lesson to learn and keep with him for the rest of his life. It had to do something with the variation in speckle patterns, he told himself - the last coherent thought he had before he was slowly embraced by the healing arms of sleep.  
  


 

* * *

 

  
  
John awoke to an earthquake, or rather, he was being roughly shaken awake. His first thought was of Sherlock, because that seemed to be Sherlock’s forte, manhandling people with head injuries, until he heard Bill’s voice say, “Oh, thank great Merlin he’s alive!”  
  
He gave John a great big enthusiastic hug, tightly clutching John’s poor shaken head to his chest.  
  
“Of _course_ I’m alive, get off of me, you prat!” was what John tried to say, but it came out sounding much more like, “Mmmrph mmmff mmmff, mmf mfff mf me, mmmo mratfff.”  
  
“Our boy’s alive!” Bill declared joyously.  
  
“Well, yes, but not for much longer if you suffocate him,” said Mike.  
  
At that Bill finally released John, who took in air in great gulping gasps. He had every intention of being upset with Bill, but one look at the giant grin spread across his friend’s face made all the upset melt away.  
  
Instead John said, “I’m glad you came to visit. Where’s Sherlock?”  
  
“Sherlock Holmes is here?” Bill said, and glanced around in fear, as if he expected Sherlock to apparate behind him at any moment. “Where is he?”  
  
“Well, Sherlock _was_ here,” John said, “I guess he left.” He tried not to sound quite so disappointed, and so he shrugged after he said it. He had been the one who had fallen asleep, after all. Sherlock probably had better things to do with his time than to sit around and watch over an unconscious person.  
  
“Are you _sure_ he’s gone?” Bill asked hurriedly. “He’s not just...lurking around somewhere?”  
  
“The room was empty when we came in, Bill,” said Mike.  
  
“Yes,” said Bill, “But how do you know that it was, in fact, an empty room?” He lowered his voice down to the level of a whisper. “Sherlock might still be here, only  _invisible_ , watching our every move!”  
  
“He was plenty visible when he was here with me earlier,” said John. “I’m also sure that he has better things to do than to watch you talk to me.”  
  
“See?” said Mike, and Bill seemed appeased, for the time being. “We came as soon as we heard you were in the Hospital Wing because of Sherlock Holmes,” Mike explained.  
  
“It was actually because of Carl Powers,” John corrected.  
  
“Bill insisted that we come to make sure that Holmes hadn’t cast an evil spell on you.”  
  
“Did he, John?” Bill asked, concerned, taking John’s face in both of his hands so that he could peer into his eyes. “Tell me, what do you remember? Anything? Do you recognise who I am? What’s my name? Wait, do you remember _your_ name? Who is the one that you call Master?”  
  
“Oh, come off it, Bill!” John said, batting the other boy’s hands away from his face. “I’m not under any evil enchantments.”  
  
“So you _say_ , but that is what people under evil enchantments _usually_   say.”  
  
John sighed and opened his eyes wide so that Bill could assess them for himself. “See? Nothing evil going on, okay? But I think you’ve given me a headache now.”  
  
“John’s okay, Bill,” Mike sighed. “And besides, if he were under a really good evil spell you probably wouldn’t know until he tried to kill you, but I don’t think Holmes is powerful enough for that kind of magic ‘cause he’s only just a firstie like us.”  
  
“Fine,” Bill said. “I choose to trust you for now, John, because you are my friend. Please do not betray that trust by claiming my life as blood sacrifice for your evil Lord and Master.”    
  
“Thank you, Bill,” said John. “You are a good friend.”  
  
“Meanwhile,” Mike said, grinning, “Can we talk about how John beat up Carl Powers? How brilliant is _that?_ ”  
  
“It _was_ quite brilliant,” John said with a little smile. He normally did not like to brag, especially not about fighting, but Carl was such a wanker. “I think I broke his nose!”  
  
“You are a very confusing boy, John Watson,” Bill said. “You make me very emotionally conflicted. On one hand, I am very _pro_ your position of punching Carl Powers in the face, but on the other hand, I am very _anti_ your position of defending Sherlock Holmes.”  
  
“Sherlock didn’t do anything,” said John defensively. “Carl was picking on him, and that’s not right.”  
  
“Spoken like a true Gryffindor,” Bill said with pride. “Of course, Carl’s in our House, too...”

“Just because someone’s in our House doesn’t mean we have to like him,” said John, who had figured this out about Carl from the first night with all the frogs. “And just because someone’s not in our House doesn’t mean we _can’t_.”  
  
“Well, of course Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs are fine,” said Bill. “But Slytherin...”  
  
“Look, do you even know any Slytherins, or is this just from the stories you’ve heard?” John asked him. “Maybe, if you tried, you’d...oh, I don’t know, make friends?”  
  
“What, me, make friends with that nasty, bigoted bunch?” said Bill, shocked.  
  
“John, we’ve seen them be mean to the Hufflepuff first years,” Mike said. “We’ve seen them make people cry, and everybody knows they cheat--”  
  
“You’ve seen _some_ Slytherins be mean,” said John. “And I’ve seen a Hufflepuff be mean, and I know Ravenclaws can be mean, and today I punched a Gryffindor for being mean. And I followed Sherlock for a week and I didn’t see him do anything evil at all, really, and he took me to the Infirmary and then he stayed. He sat right here with me while Madam Pomfrey made me better.”  
  
“Oh, John, I want to believe you,” Bill said, quite tragically. “But that also might just be your head injury talking.”  
  
“Wait, which is it?” asked Mike. “A head injury or an evil spell?”  
  
“Well...” said Bill. “He could have both. Head injury and then evil spell on top of it. Wait, do head injuries mess with evil spells?”  
  
John’s hands both clenched in the sheet. He didn’t understand this feeling that had risen up in him all of a sudden. He had a terrible headache and he was dealing with a concussion, and now Bill was dismissing what he was saying because Bill overreacted to everything. It was usually very amusing and it made John laugh a lot, but right now he didn’t feel like laughing at all.    
  
When he’d argued with friends before it had been over toys, what game to play, who had cheated, who had won. This was a something different, something terrible and real,  a hot feeling in his chest but also heavy and hard, stuck in his throat. Because the thing was, Bill probably didn’t even mean anything by it. Bill was afraid of Sherlock, for sure, and he was certainly afraid for John because Bill cared about John. But the casual way Bill so easily accepted ‘All Slytherins are evil’ - the way that they both did, Bill and Mike, the way that even John had, because everyone knew it to be true - that was so hugely unfair John could not even begin to describe it. It was these little things, these tiny things that everybody accepted and everybody thought was okay that led to Sherlock being treated the way he did, that made people cheer Carl on. In the end John did not even know who or what he was angry at, only that he felt awful, and his fists bunched up the white hospital sheet and his whole body shook and hurt.  
  
“Bill and Mike,” John finally said tightly, “I’m really happy you came to see me but I’m really tired so I think you guys should go so I can rest.”  
  
“Did we upset you?” Mike said quickly, and then hit Bill on the arm. “I told you not to upset him!”  
  
“John, whatever it is, I take it back,” Bill said, and he didn’t even know what it is that made John upset, and John didn’t know how to put it into words.  
  
“Bill was just joking,” said Mike.  
  
“Mostly,” said Bill, which earned him a another smack on the arm. “Ow! That one was _hard!_ ”  
  
“It’s just....everything,” John said. “A lot of stuff. I really am knackered.” It wasn’t a lie. He suddenly did find himself exhausted, and he didn’t want to be angry and he didn’t want to argue with his friends. “Will you...will you just think about what I said?”  
  
“We are going to try to be better,” Mike said definitively. “Aren’t we, Bill?”  
  
“Ohhhhh, _fiiiine_ ,” Bill groaned. He dodged the next smack. “Hey! I just said I’d offer up my safety  and well-being for John! No more hitting!”  
  
“ _Hm_ ,” said Mike, which was about as threatening as John had ever heard that little syllable.  
  
“I just worry a lot about you, okay?” Bill said, dutifully contrite.  
  
“I know,” said John, and he sighed a little sigh.  
  


 

* * *

 

After Bill and Mike left, John fell back asleep, as the potion had a definite soporific effect on him. He woke up at one point to find that dinner had appeared and then he, subsequently, made some of it disappear. He was thankful for the sleeping, because otherwise it would have been unbearably boring.  
  
Sherlock didn’t come back.  John didn’t think he would, and really, he had no right to expect him to.  
  
Still, he couldn’t help feeling just a little bit disappointed.

 

* * *

  
  
Sherlock was trying very hard to read “ _1001 Deadly Plants and Their Particularly Dangerous Uses_.” He’d been waiting for over a week to get his hands on that book, as it was in the Restricted Section of the Library, and it had required quite a bit of work on his part to acquire it. Mycroft considered it inappropriate reading. “You’ll get far too many ideas,” he’d said, without even specifying whether the ideas were _bad_ or _good_. Although to be fair, Sherlock generally thought all ideas to be good, especially when they were his own. Mycroft often took the opposite stance, because he was contrary like that, and utterly unreasonable to boot. He was a terrible old bore whose whole purpose in existence was to stifle genius, and Sherlock had told him so. When that hadn’t worked, Sherlock had whinged and he’d whined, he’d pouted and thrown a strop, and finally, as a trump card, he’d resorted to telling Mycroft what Victor Trevor had done to his inkwell, with just a hint of tears glittering in his wide, pale eyes.  
  
Sherlock had found the book on his bed the next day.  
  
But now, as he found himself reading over the page for Venomous Tentacula for the third time, he suspected that perhaps his concentration was elsewhere - despite the beautifully horrifying story on that page concerning a wizard and his unorthodox usage for Tentacula, and the resulting damage to his body parts.    
  
It was because John was in the Infirmary, and he was in the Infirmary on _Sherlock’s_ account. No one had ever been hospitalised on Sherlock’s account before, and of the very short list of people that would do something that grand (Mummy, Mycroft) he found that he sincerely did not want them to, ever. It was only a John Watson thing to do, then, and Sherlock could not figure out why he’d done it, and for once, not knowing was more intriguing than infuriating.    
  
What was infuriating, however, was that he could not currently see John because John had idiotic _‘friends’_ \- Sherlock imbued that word with particular scorn, until it was a little burst of a black scribble in his mind - who very obviously did not like Sherlock, and moreover, sought to poison John’s mind against him. It was enough to make one want to throw things against the wall.  
  
Three smashed vials and one green-and-purple-splattered wall later, Sherlock didn’t feel much better. So he slammed his book shut and headed for the Hospital Wing.  
  
He managed to pull off a fair imitation of humble for long enough to get Madam Pomfrey to allow him into the Infirmary, although he was warned not to disturb John, who was sleeping as the potion worked its magic. She needn’t have worried. Sherlock had never been given an opportunity to watch anybody sleep before (and indeed, he’d never had an inclination to) and now he wasn’t going to ruin it for the world.  
  
For the time being, at least.  
  
There were a lot of things that Sherlock understood about people: statistically speaking, the vast majority of them were idiots. Mummy had done her best to shelter him from this hard fact of life, but the early attempts made at socialisation let all the idiocy leak through, and he had been well informed of this upsetting state of affairs by the seasoned age of five. They were also deleteriously dull, and predictable. Even Mycroft could be predicted if you knew right (most, obviously, didn’t).  
  
And so Sherlock had known the altercation with Powers would escalate the moment he saw the boy with the red-marked Charms quiz clutched in his hand. He had predicted that a crowd would gather and that none of them would offer any assistance: Bystander Effect. What he had not accounted for was John Watson, who was baffling and fascinating in the extent to which he baffled him.  
  
John was deep asleep now, his eyes flickering back and forth beneath his eyelids in what Sherlock recognised as Rapid Eye Movement. He very much wanted to touch them, to feel the shift and movement of eyes underneath skin underneath his fingertips, and with anyone else he would have. For the first time in his life, Sherlock restrained himself. Instead he let John sleep, watching his measured, even breaths, the subtle twitch of lashes against his cheeks. He very lightly touched the soft, unmarred skin that had once been a deep laceration until he’d helped heal it. His fingers gently brushed the one eye that had been inflamed and swollen shut, now smoothed out and even.  
  
He really wanted to look at John’s scar again, to trace that white line of scar tissue underneath his fingertips and try to pinpoint every entry the needle had made into his skin. He wanted to see all the interesting scars and marks John had; the stories they would tell about what John had possibly been doing when he’d gotten them, or what stitches may been done to sew all those terrible little holes shut again.  
  
But most of all he wanted to know what went on inside John’s brain. He wanted to open it up and have a peer around, run his fingers over it until it told him all sorts of stories too. That part he could not see or touch and he did not understand.  
  
These things were sadly all beyond him, and so Sherlock had to content himself with merely charting out John’s sleeping pattern as he waited for the moment when John would return to him, in the world of the conscious and thinking.  
  


* * *

  
  
John did not wake again until after Madam Pomfrey called “Lights out!” in the infirmary, and all the lamps had dutifully extinguished themselves in little puffs of smoke. Sherlock had camped out in the neighbouring bed, sprawled out on his stomach and reading _“1001 Deadly Plants and Their Particularly Dangerous Uses”_  by wandlight. Every now and again he looked up to watch John shift around in his sleep, which he seemed to do 2.5 times per hour. John was currently curled up into a tight ball on one side of the bed, the majority of his blanket gathered up in his arms and the sheet half off his bed.  
  
Sherlock really thought he wouldn’t wake up until morning, which was terribly dull, considering how very not-tired he himself was. He considered giving John a shake himself to wake him up, and after another moment’s consideration, he slid himself out of bed to do it. He had both hands on John’s shoulders and was about to shake him when John stirred and woke of his own accord, letting out a sharp little cry of surprise when he saw how close Sherlock’s face was to his own.  
  
This of course prompted Sherlock to immediately clap his hand over John’s mouth, since he’d promised Madam Pomfrey 1.) not to make a commotion 2.) not to disturb John 3.) not to kill John, and although Sherlock was fairly sure he could get away with breaking the last two rules without ever being found guilty, if John screamed she might think he was guilty of all three.  
  
“Sherlock?” John said, muffled from behind Sherlock’s hand. And then, “Am I dreaming?”  
  
Sherlock was torn between scoffing at the idiocy of the question and being pleased that John thought it was a possibility that he had been dreaming about Sherlock.  
  
He settled for a simple, “No, you’re in the Infirmary. And be quiet, it’s past curfew.”  
  
“Oh,” said John, when Sherlock determined that he could safely remove his hand. “I’m still here?” John asked.  Which was, of course, a stupid question, but was a better question than “why am I here?” which would indicate some sort of traumatic memory loss.  
  
“Yes, you have to stay overnight for observation,” Sherlock reminded him. And then, a sudden flare of panic that perhaps John really did have amnesia - “Remember?”  
  
“Right,” said John, nodding. “That’s me sorted. Why are you here?”  
  
“Because tomorrow is Saturday and I needn’t attend any classes,” Sherlock drawled, like it was the most obvious thing in the world and it bored him - because it _was_ and it _did_.  
   
“Well, yes,” said John. “But why are you spending your Friday night in the Infirmary here with _me?_ ”  
  
“Do you see anybody else here?” Sherlock made a grand gesture to show how empty the room was. “You have to be under observation; and who, do you know, is better at observation than me?”  
  
“Oh,” said John. “That’s true.” And then he smiled at Sherlock, which was fairly alarming because most people did not smile at Sherlock at all - not unless they were in fear for their lives and they thought some faked pleasantries might appeal to the small percentage of him they could consider human. Even then, it tended to be a disgusting, fearful little grimace. And yet here John was, healing from a concussion that he’d acquired on Sherlock’s behalf, face half-lit by the _Lumos_ from Sherlock’s wand, smiling at him, genuinely and warmly.    
  
He felt his core temperature increase by a degree or two.  
  
So Sherlock took a step back, and then another, until he had retreated back into his own little comfortable fortress of blankets plus one very heavy Restricted illicit textbook.  
  
And then, to further worsen matters, John said, “Thank you,” in a very sincere tone which Sherlock did not understand, because people did not generally thank Sherlock  for anything unless it was the cessation of something unpleasant that he’d been doing. Furthermore, people did not thank other people for a beating unless they had severe masochistic tendencies, and Sherlock had not read John as that sort of boy.  
  
It was enough to make one want to throw a blanket over one’s head and refuse to come out, not that Sherlock did that sort of thing.  
  
“Hmph,” he said scornfully instead, opening his book to where he had left off, in the middle of gruesome account about a man and his dubious, dangerous usage of a Snarfalump. There were an awful lot of tentacled plants, Sherlock noted.  
  
“What are you reading?” John asked.  
  
“It’s not anything you would be interested in,” Sherlock replied.  
  
John tilted his head sideways and read aloud, “ _‘1001 Deadly Plants and Their Particularly Dangerous Uses._ ’ Oh, that sounds...’”  
  
Sherlock clutched the edges of the book tight, and waited for it. Weird. Boring. Strange. Unhealthy.  
  
“Really cool,” John finished. “Like poisons and things, right?”  
  
“Yes, exactly,” said Sherlock, letting out a little breath he didn’t know he had been holding. “But not just that, that’s _obvious_. There are more creative uses, too. For example, did you know that a treacherous Devil’s Snare looks exactly like the innocuous household Flitterbloom? Switch one for the other, and you’d have the victim watering and nurturing their very own murderer.”  
  
“Wow,” breathed John, and meant it. He was the type of person that would be a terrible liar.  
  
“You could borrow it after I’m done,” Sherlock said generously. And then, with a hint of pride, he told John, “It is _illicit material_.”  
  
“Oooh,” said John. He was impressed, Sherlock could tell, from the soft way he breathed the sound and leaned in, just a little. “I’ve never read _illicit material_ before.”  
  
“You should try it,” Sherlock suggested. “It might help you get to sleep at night.”  
  
“How do you know I can’t sleep at night?” John asked.  
  
“You always walk slower to your first class, when normally, you practically run to everything. This past Tuesday you yawned five times during the lecture portion of Potions. It’s _excrutiatingly_ obvious. I’m amazed you don’t nod off during History of Magic.”    
  
“It’s taught by a _real live ghost_ ,” John said, as if this explained everything.  
  
“Ghosts cannot be alive, by definition,” Sherlock informed him. “But yes, Professor Binns is sadly very real, torturously boring, _and_ teaching the most useless class in the whole history of classes. Don’t Muggles have ghosts?”  
  
John shook his head. “Not ones that people usually see. And certainly not ones that teach classes. Boring ones or otherwise. Most people don’t even believe in them.”  
  
How utterly dull. “Not believing in a thing doesn’t make it not real,” Sherlock said.  
  
John nodded, solemnly. “And....believing in a thing doesn’t make it true?” he offered. It was just about the only logical thing that anyone had said to Sherlock in the entire time he’d been at Hogwarts, so he smiled at John with obvious approval.  
  
“Contrary to all appearances, you are not completely idiotic,” Sherlock said, quite graciously.  
  
“Um, thanks?” said John. He wrinkled his nose with consternation, and clutched the bundle of hospital blankets tighter to his chest.  
  
“Do you miss Gladstone?” Sherlock asked him.  
  
“Why do you ask?” John said, which prompted Sherlock to pointedly give him a Look, intended for both John and the little blanket baby he had constructed for himself.  
  
“Oh,” said John, and he immediately released the blankets. “I don’t always sleep with him...I mean, of course I don’t sleep with him, that’s babyish and silly and--”  
  
“I sleep with Billy sometimes,” Sherlock said.  
  
“Oh,” said John, with a little breath of relief. “So it’s...you think it’s okay.”  
  
“Of course, I don’t sleep a lot if I can help it,” Sherlock amended. “Sleep is boring when there are so many other things I’d rather be doing. Normal people like you, however, need the rest, and you don’t sleep much because you’re homesick.”  
  
The conclusion didn’t come to him until he had started saying it, but it all suddenly made sense, the way he’d first seen John on the train. John’s hesitant steps on the carpeted floor of the compartment, the lost way he knew John must have wandered, compartment to compartment, until he’d come to Sherlock’s, one of the last ones, at the end of the car. He’d heard the quiet hitch of breath as the train had started to pull away from the station; it was the way that someone sounded when they were trying very hard not to cry. He had touched something in his pocket, that Sherlock now knew was Gladstone. That combined with John’s blatant eagerness to form attachments with people and practically everything he came in contact with - he’d probably befriend an almost-sentient slime mould if given the chance - made the answer painfully obvious.

  
“Yeah,” John whispered, caught out. “I kind of miss my mum. And my bed. And home.”  
  
Sherlock felt a little thrill of vindication that John’s wonderful new   _‘friends’_  were apparently not good enough to keep him from missing these things.  
  
“It’s not unusual. Up to 9% of first years report homesickness,” Sherlock informed him. “I should miss my mum more, I think. Only I have Mycroft, and he’s about the same as having a mum around.”  
  
John looked confused for a moment, but Sherlock didn’t blame him. Mycroft was particularly hard for most people to comprehend.  
  
John tilted his head and regarded him curiously. “How do you know so much? Do you really have evil powers?”  
  
Sherlock sucked in a sharp breath. A cold, heavy weight settled into his stomach, the same sharp realisation he’d had when he had seen John’s expression the moment he had Sorted Slytherin. He’d known that look of instinctive fear, the flare of alarm in the unevolved sectors of primitive brains; reactions ranging from fear to repulsion to disgust. The unspoken _something is very wrong with this child._ He’d heard it all before.  
  
“I don’t _know_ ,” Sherlock spat out. “I _notice_. I observe. I deduce. The information is all there for anyone to access, it’s not my fault that the rest of the world is composed of blind imbeciles content to walk around in the imbecility of their awful, pointless lives.”  
  
“Oh,” said John, taken aback. “Of course I knew that’s what you do...it’s just that I thought...”  
  
“What did you _think?_ ” Sherlock very nearly hissed.  
  
"Well, I thought...it'd be really cool, wouldn't it?” John said, and he actually smiled. “If you had special powers. Not the evil part, that's bad, but the power part. You could use your powers for good!"  
  
Now it was Sherlock’s turn to be taken aback. “Oh,” he said, and felt the heaviness ease out and slip away. “I never thought of it that way before.”  
  
"You could be like Batman," John whispered.  
  
"Why would I want to be a bat-man? I don't want to eat insects," Sherlock said, making a little face of distaste. That had been determined by an ill-advised experiment four years ago. Moths were dusty and awful. Mosquitoes didn’t taste all that much like blood. And ‘butterfly” was _definitely_ a misnomer.  
  
"No no no, not _a_ bat-man, _the_ Batman,” John corrected. “His real name is Bruce Wayne and he’s a millionaire and he's a superhero. He fights villains, and solves crimes, and keeps the city safe."  
  
"Is he a wizard?" asked Sherlock, who had never heard of such a being before.  
  
“Even better,” John said, eyes wide and bright with enthusiasm.  They glittered in the half-light of _Lumos_. "He's a detective!"  
  
"Do detectives usually fight villains?" Sherlock wanted to know.  
  
"Well,” John allowed, “maybe he's a fighting-evil, heroic kind of detective. Maybe he's the only one in the world."  
  
Sherlock nodded. He knew what it felt like, sometimes, to be the only one in the world of something.  
  
“Batman fights for justice,” said John, “and he’s different, because some people think he’s scary, because he always comes out at night. But that’s why they call him the Dark Knight. He gives bad guys something to be afraid of.”  
  
“So does he save a lot of people, this bat-man?” Sherlock asked.  
  
“Oh, yes, _all_ the time,” John said. “He saves the whole of Gotham city all the time, and that’s got to be _millions_ of people.”  
  
“Where is Gotham City?”  
  
“America, somewhere, I think,” John said, with a vague little wave. And then he seemed to realise something. “Oh! Batman’s not real! Did I forget that? He’s not real like _magic_  is real.”  
  
“So he’s like an Umgubular Slashkilter?”  
  
“Well, I don’t know what an Umboogu Slashkiller is,” John admitted, “but I don’t think Batman’s like that. He’s in comics and movies and stuff.”  
  
Sherlock gave him a blank stare.  
  
“Well, of course you don’t know what a movie is,” John said, “But don’t wizards get comics? You have got to have comics, at least.”  
  
“Of course wizards have comics,” Sherlock sniffed disdainfully. “But I do not waste my time reading said comics, because they are puerile and childish.”  
  
“Sherlock, we _are_ children,” John was unkind enough to point out.    
  
Sherlock scoffed and looked down at his heavy textbook again.  
  
“Well, since you’re nice enough to let me borrow your _illicit material,_ ” John said, indicating the book, which was open to a very lovely rendering of a person choking to death on Bloodroot, “you can borrow some comic books as...proof I’ll return it.”  
  
“Collateral,” supplied Sherlock.  
  
“Exactly,” smiled John. “That’s the word!”  
  
“Hm,” Sherlock looked doubtful. Normally it would be easy to refuse something so ridiculous, but John seemed so excited and Sherlock had a very clear image of what a disappointed John look like, and how it somehow made _him_ feel awful although he rarely felt awful about other people’s disappointment.  
  
“It’s interesting,” coaxed John. “And Batman’s parents were _murdered_ by criminals, you’ll like that part at least. That’s why he devotes his life to fighting crime. I always thought that he must be very lonely, and that’s why he has Robin. But in the movie there’s no Robin, so that’s sad. Maybe I’ll show you a movie sometime. They’re brilliant.”  
  
“Okay,” said Sherlock. That last statement was remarkable - not necessarily because of the movie part , but because of the implication that they would be spending time together in the future.  
  
He thought about what John had said, earlier that day, that no one bullied his _friends_.  It was a hateful little word that Sherlock so despised because he had none and had no need for any. He had Billy, he had Mummy, he had Mycroft (in both owl and brother forms), and in these, all the social interaction one could possibly need. For one brief moment he’d entertained the thought of having a real, human friend for once, a foolish idea that had been wisely abandoned the second that John had turned that predictable, dull look of despair onto him at the Sorting.  
  
But today John had looked at him and had used that tired word, friend, and had declared it in front of everyone, as if Sherlock was the exact same as those who bantered and giggled with him, as if Sherlock were the type to trade Chocolate Frog cards and debate the Cannons’ chances this season. John had spilled blood for Sherlock, both his own and that of Sherlock’s enemy - that had to count for something. It always counted in barbarian, vampiric, and piratic circles.  
  
“Your  Wand-Light Charm is really good,” John said, interrupting Sherlock’s thoughts.  
“Bill nearly lit his wand on fire the other day because he wasn’t concentrating enough. I wish I’d known  how to do it a few years ago, it’s really useful and it’s heaps better than a night-light.”  
  
“You used to be afraid of the dark?” Sherlock asked.  
  
John nodded, very solemnly. “I know it’s silly, and it doesn’t make sense. I knew that monsters weren’t real, but when the lights go out, it’s hard to remember that.”  
  
He looked anxiously at Sherlock, as if expecting mockery. Sherlock simply nodded in agreement, and decided not to tell John about the monster that he’d kept in his closet for the better part of three years.  
  
“What made you get over your phobia?” he asked him instead.  
  
“Well,” John said, “Batman.”  
  
“What?” asked Sherlock, confused, because he thought he’d just started to get a grasp on this whole bat-man thing. Apparently not.  
  
“Well, because Batman’s not real,” John explained. “And I know Batman’s not real. But Mum said you aren’t allowed to believe in one thing without the other. You can’t believe in evil things without believing in good things, too. There...there has to be a balance. So if I’m going to believe in imaginary monsters than I can believe that Batman is out there and he can fight monsters and save people, and save me when I need him. ”  
  
Sherlock considered this. It was actually quite logical, and he nodded, satisfied. “It sounds like your mum is an intelligent woman.”  
  
“She’s loads smart,” John agreed. His lips pressed together unhappily.  
  
It was a terrible expression on him because it made Sherlock’s insides feel all pressed together like that, all tight and unhappy.  
  
A bat-man thing was the solution. John got all excited when he talked about that; it was an easy distraction.  
  
“Tell me more about this bat-man and...movies,” Sherlock said, closing his book and settling back into the bed. The potion was bound to take effect again, and John would be asleep soon enough, so he wouldn’t have to listen to it for long.  
  
John began to talk, describing the plot of a story, something about a crime lord with a disfigurement who became a maniacal jester. He was already yawning by the point in the story where the man fell into a ‘chemical’ vat, which Sherlock gathered was something like a botched potion.  
  
John’s voice wove comfortably around him in the dark, every now and again pitched with excitement, hushed when he talked about something he found frightening or delightfully _evil._ He keyed in to the tune of John’s voice more than the actual words, the rise and the fall of it,  the rhythm, the pattern, the lull and the lilt of it.    
  
Sherlock could not pinpoint the moment when he fell asleep, when his thoughts slipped gently and blurred into dreams. John’s voice was a murmuring hum in the background, fading. Sherlock’s thoughts slowed and smoothed themselves out.    
  
In the night, he dreamt of a man with giant leathery wings,  watching over a dark castle, able to protect them both from all that was bad in the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
>  [](http://johnnybooboo.tumblr.com/post/50342171500/traumachu-johnnybooboo-1001-deadly-plants)   
> 
> 
> *sobbing because [Deni drew this scene for me](http://johnnybooboo.tumblr.com/post/50342171500/traumachu-johnnybooboo-1001-deadly-plants) and it is so perfect and flawless and amazing*


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you as always to my lovely [blessedjessed](http://blessedjessed.tumblr.com/my-writing) for the Britpick!! 
> 
> This chapter has been a long time coming, and it's the longest chapter yet. I want to thank you all for your patience! I also want to thank everyone who took the time to send me messages of encouragement as well!
> 
> And special thanks to people who made me lovely fanart!! Aahh!!
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> [Lonelyhufferpuffer drew the Infirmary scene! Ahh, feel the healing power. Reblog/like to show her love! ](http://lonelyhufferpuffer.tumblr.com/post/52060188799/finished-potterlock-i-havent-worked-with-markers)
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> [Kami drew Sherlock and the current imbecile population infesting Hogwarts. Brilliant! ](http://msaether.tumblr.com/post/53301525598/oops-more-potterlock-insp-by-this)  
> 

The walk to Professor Hudson’s office seemed like a particularly long one, despite the fact that it was a Sunday and none of the staircases had decided to reroute themselves. John plodded along, each step heavy on the castle flagstone, and understood the term “Dead Man Walking” for the very first time in his life. Even the suits of armour that lined the hallways seemed to gaze pityingly at him as he passed. He hadn’t even gotten to have a good breakfast; porridge and kippers this morning! Wet mashed oats and little fish were going to be his Last Meal before he left Hogwarts forever.

“You’re not going to get expelled,” Mike reassured him, “But on the off chance that you do, can I have your bed? I rather like that spot by the window, it’s really very nice.”

“No!” Bill cried, aghast. “If John gets expelled no one is allowed to take his bed! We shall keep it exactly as it is, forever, to honour the memory of our sweet John Watson, taken from us far too soon.”

“Well, it can’t be forever,” said Mike. “Once we graduate we won’t be able to keep people from messing with it.”

“Okay, okay,” Bill amended, “Forever or for the next seven years, whichever comes first.”

“Technically, it’s six,” corrected Mike.

“Should I be worried that you’ve both thought about this?” John asked. He had not had much time to think about it himself, considering that he’d been recovering from his head injury and all, trivial things like that.

“You should not worry about anything at all, because I will not allow you to be expelled,” Bill said. “I will testify for you on the stand, even under oath!”

“He’s only meeting with a professor, Bill,” said Mike, “not going up against the Wizengamot.”

“ _Still,_ ” Bill insisted.

“Thank you, Bill,” said John. “I am deeply touched that you would tell a great many lies on my behalf. That’s almost Slytherin of you.”

Bill spluttered. “John, why would you say something like that? Why would you want to _hurt_ me?”

John smiled for the first time that day.

 

* * *

 

Sherlock stalked down the hall with long, purposeful strides, his black robes billowing out behind him. He looked like thunderclouds could form beneath his feet. He looked like the sky should darken behind him, and perhaps dramatically flash with lightning every other step. A Hufflepuff first year scrambled to get out of Sherlock’s way and nearly entangled himself with an unhappy suit of armour in the process.

John had never seen anybody who walked that way before. Not outside of movies, at least.

Mike hummed the Imperial March not-so-subtly.

"Mike, he's not Darth Vader," John meant to chide, but he couldn't help giggling a bit because it wasn't a completely unfair comparison. Sherlock just needed a helmet, really. And perhaps some height.

"What’s a Darth Vader?" Bill demanded. "Is it some sort of Muggle-esque Dark Wizard type thing?"

"Not really," said Mike.

"Yeah, sort of," said John.

“Whatever it is, I want nothing to do with it,” Bill said, ducking behind John as Sherlock approached.

“My hero,” said John drily.

“My affection,” Bill replied, “is the better part of my valor.”

“That doesn’t even make any sense,” Mike said, although he was not beyond stepping back a little.

Sherlock, who was usually less than impressed by everything, appeared even less than less-than-impressed with the two Gryffindors who were currently displaying their bravery by hiding behind the smallest boy of their year. He arched an imperious brow.

"John," he said.

"Sherlock!" John said, unable to help smiling - his second smile of that day - despite the fact that he was in very real danger of being kicked out of Hogwarts forever.

"Mike!" Bill said to Mike.

"Shut up, Bill," said Mike.

"I told you already, you're not going to be expelled," Sherlock said to John, rolling his eyes. "So stop that."

"I wouldn't be so sure of that," sneered the unmistakably snotty voice of Carl Powers. Sadly, he was completely Healed to his regular, crummy self, and on his face was a normal nose, not even the slightest bit bumpy or wonky. The only consolation was that Carl did have a fairly funny-looking little face, as far as faces went, with ears and hair all sticking out. It was not nice to note that, of course, but then again, Carl Powers was not a nice boy, and John supposed that it was all right to note when not-nice-people were not-nice-looking.

Carl had not arrived alone: he was flanked by an older Ravenclaw boy on one side, and a Hufflepuff boy on the other. John remembered that the Hufflepuff was a bedwetter called Anderson. He felt bad that he remembered the first fact before the second, but then Anderson spoke.

“There were witnesses there on Friday. Everybody’s going to know who attacked first. They really oughtn’t allow young ruffians into this school,” Anderson sneered.

“Anderson, don’t talk out loud,” Sherlock said. “You lower the IQ of the whole castle.”

“I’d like to see how cocky you are, Holmes, when you have no teeth to speak of,” Carl said, stepping forward and brandishing his fist.

“You leave him alone,” John said, taking a step forward as well. “Looks like your nose healed crooked. Maybe you need me to fix it for you?”

“Ah, the House traitor,” Carl sneered. “Big talk from tiny little filth.”

“Hey!” Bill said, “No one talks about our John that way!”

“Yeah!” Mike chimed in.

“Oh, goodness, Merlin help us, not _firsties_ ,” mocked the Ravenclaw boy. “Whatever shall we do? Anything but _firsties_ , we’re all so very scared.”

“Good one, Wilkes,” said Anderson.

“Dear _God_ ,” muttered Sherlock.

“Well, you know,” John said, “For a pathetic firstie, I think I did a right decent job of kicking your arse.”

It was the first time that John had ever used the word _arse_ aloud, and so threateningly, too. It wasn’t a nice word to say, and if he’d done it at home he’d have gotten in trouble for it, for sure, but there was the thrill of saying something so _forbidden_ , and confidence sprouted golden in his chest. He didn’t think he’d ever said anything so _cool_ in his entire life.

He sized up the three older boys. He could probably take them.

“So maybe you third years could use a prac-tical demon-stration from this little firstie,” John said, enunciating his words carefully, so as not to lose their impact.

He was on a wild cool streak.

“John, please,” Sherlock said, “Don’t waste your breath. If you wish for this crowd to understand you, you must speak excruciatingly slowly and use very, very small words. You’re also using logic, which seems beyond them. ”

“Well, then, let’s see how well you understand _this_ ,” Carl said as he immediately drew his wand. This spurred, very predictably, a quick draw of wands from all around - John and Sherlock, of course, but also Bill and Mike, as well as Anderson and the Ravenclaw boy named Wilkes.

The only spell John really knew was the Levitating Charm, but he was fairly certain he could _Wingardium Leviosa_ the _pants_ off of somebody.

“Well, it’s not every day that one comes back to her office to find a Mexican standoff awaiting her,” said Professor Hudson as she arrived.

John had not even even heard her approach, but he supposed that he had been rather distracted, hand tight on his wand, body tense for the fight, and mind focused on the idea of sending Carl Powers flying into the nearest stationary object.

“Particularly not,” she added, “before a Disciplinary Meeting in regards to fighting in school.”

There was an uncertain moment where all boys involved internally debated whether it was possible to deny that an all-out wizard’s battle royale had been impending. Perhaps they could suggest that they had only had their wands out as a friendly start to the new-fangled popular schoolyard game _‘Get Your Wand Out and Point It at Somebody.’_

It was only a party, John considered saying for one ridiculous, panicked moment. They’d only been having a wand party, as you do, when a group of chums were thusly gathered together.

Under Professor Hudson’s expectant look, the boys put their wands away, shuffling their feet and some of them even had the grace to look a bit abashed.

Not Sherlock, of course. Sherlock probably couldn’t look abashed even if he were caught naked in Buckingham Palace.

“Now, Disciplinary Meetings are not a spectator activity,” Professor Hudson said mildly. “It’s a beautiful Sunday. I’m sure there are plenty of entertaining activities out there for you boys to occupy yourselves. Aren’t there, Mr. Anderson, Mr. Wilkes?”

Anderson and Wilkes looked at each other, mumbled a quick, “Yes Ma’am,” and dutifully slunk away.

“And you, Mr. Murray, Mr. Stamford?” Professor Hudson prompted.

“Nope,” said Bill, standing by John. “I have absolutely nothing more good or fun to do with my time. I’d just waste it, really. Honest.”

“There isn’t any homework you could possibly be doing?” Professor Hudson asked him.

“None of that, right, Mike?” Bill said.

“Right,” Mike confirmed.

“Hmm. Perhaps I should assign you two some homework, then?” said Professor Hudson, thoughtfully. “Since you do have so much wasteful free time after all, according to Mr. Murray, and nothing productive with which to fill it.”

“Bill, you are _literally_ the worst,” Mike groaned.

“Actually,” said Bill now, “I think there _are_ things that I could be doing. Yeah, lots of things. Productive things. Good luck, John! I’ll be praying for you.”

“You don’t pray,” said John.

“Exactly,” Bill nodded, as if that explained everything. “You’ll be fine!” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “Deny everything! You’re an innocent man!” He punctuated his words with a very obvious wink.

“Don’t wink at me like that if I’m innocent,” said John.

“You’ll be just fine,” Mike reassured him. “And if I can’t have your bed, can I at least have your stuff?”

“No, you can’t!” said Bill quickly. “We’ll need it for the shrine.”

Professor Hudson pointedly cleared her throat.

“Yes, Ma’am,” said Bill and Mike in unison, beatifically. They beat a hasty retreat, and John hedged a little bit closer to Sherlock in their absence.

“Oh, it’s so nice to have friends,” remarked Professor Hudson, quite pleasantly, as she turned to the remaining three boys. The next thing she said, however, while still in that pleasant tone, sent a horrid little chill wriggling down John’s spine like an icy caterpillar.

“Come step into my office,” she said.

 

* * *

 

 

Professor Hudson’s office was spacious and bright and nothing at all like a Doomy Dungeon where a young Watson’s dreams might go to die. It smelled like what John imagined Heaven might possibly smell like, like a giant bakery where a dozen bakers baked a hundred of one’s favourite pies, all warmth and cinnamony sugary spice. Red and gold tapestry covered the walls, same as in the Gryffindor Common Room. Vases of royal purple flowers (the same hue as Professor Hudson’s robes) sprouted randomly from various surfaces as if the seeds had alighted upon desks and cabinets and bookshelves and decided to take root and flourish there. The room was filled with squashy floral print sofas, all of them covered with assorted doilies, and one sofa was covered with an orange tabby cat stretched over a lace doily, napping in the sunlight.

It was all very deceptive, was what it was. John was no fool. This was a Doom Room.

Sherlock did not appear to share his very legitimate fears, but then again, Sherlock had not broken anybody’s nose. (Pity, that.)

“Tea and biscuits,” Sherlock ordered as he sat down, sinking down an inch or so into the comfy sofa.

“I’m a Head of House, dear, not your housekeeper,” said Professor Hudson.

“You’re not _my_ Head of House,” said Sherlock, who was being appalling again.

“I’m still your Professor, dear,” Professor Hudson said, “And I deserve to be respected as such.”

“You already have the kettle on,” noted Sherlock. “I like chocolate biscuits. I’ll have those.” And then, as an afterthought, “Professor. Please.”

The chocolate biscuits were rather good, thought John later, as he settled in with his cup of tea. He looked over at Sherlock, who had methodically combined the creme fillings of all the biscuits he’d been given into one large creme-filled Frankenbiscuit, and was now attempting to dunk it without much regard for the mess. Even Carl was quiet, busy stuffing his mouth full of biscuits and occasionally spraying crumbs everywhere.

“So,” said Professor Hudson, taking a seat on an equally squashy armchair across from the boys. “Would anyone like to tell me what happened Friday afternoon?”

“Holmes and Watson ganged up on me, Professor! I was walking back to Gryffindor Tower and then they jumped me!” cried Powers, punctuating the words with a shower of chocolate crumbs. “You can ask Sebastian and Silvius, they were there! They’re witnesses! These two _criminals_ should both be expelled!”

John spluttered. “Liar! That’s a dirty lie!”

“ _Silvius,_ ” Sherlock whispered to himself, slightly in awe.

“I see,” said Professor Hudson. “And why would Mr. Holmes and Mr. Watson have reason to ‘jump’ you, Mr. Powers?”

“Because they’re _criminals!_ ” Carl reiterated. “Everybody knows Holmes is never up to any good, I don’t know if you’ve heard, Professor, but he’s a fledgling Dark Wizard, and Watson has proved that he’s a House traitor, and I was just on my way to do homework and they _attacked_ me.”

“Those are some rather heavy allegations, Mr. Powers,” Professor Hudson noted.

“Not to mention completely rubbish!” John said.

“I wish I could say it was an interesting fabrication,” said Sherlock, in that fancy way he had. “But Powers’ story is predictable at best. Completely lacking in creativity. Troll-level, even.”

“Why you nasty little-” Carl began, leaning forward in his chair, arm clearly raised to chuck his biscuit at Sherlock’s head. He then, noted Professor Hudson’s raised brow and said, “Professor! Holmes just called me a troll!”

“I did no such thing,” said Sherlock. “I said I would grade the quality of your made-up story a _T_. Do try to keep up.” He calmly took a sip of his tea while Carl spluttered, wildly pointing at Sherlock as if to say, _‘Do you see this? Do you see what I have to deal with here?’_

Sherlock set his cup down and pressed his hands together, a gesture that let John know - with a little flutter of excitement - that Sherlock was about to explain A Thing.

“Even supposing that you were correct and John and I had actual motivation for attacking you - and being a Dark Wizard fledgling does not count, really, that’s stupid, what would I have to gain? - the logistics of it don’t work out. Never mind the fact that John’s last class of the day is Transfigurations, which is across the school from the Library, so physically John could not have been in the same place as you and I when we first ran into each other, after the bell rang at 3:30. If the story goes as you say, and it was John and I who ambushed you, then I would have had to be physically involved in the fight and yet only the two of you ended up with injuries. Now, you may suggest that perhaps I held you down while John landed the punch - a fairly ridiculous accusation, but not entirely illogical...except when you consider the differences in our physical size. You, of course, being a Third Year Beater for the Quidditch team and with the typical physique to match, and myself being an ‘ickle firstie’ as you’ve been so happy to point out before - I simply don’t have the upper body strength to be able to hold you down, especially not long enough for John to throw a punch, and - given your aggressive nature - without getting hurt myself. Perhaps I used magic, you might say, altering your story a little because surely you would have mentioned magic before this; however, a quick Scan of my wand to show the last five spells cast would reveal nothing more threatening than a Wand-Lighting Charm.”

Sherlock paused, and then added, ”Unless, of course...you happen to be scared of a little glowy light."

John couldn’t help but ask, “ _Are_ you?”

“Of course not!” Carl snapped.

“So, then,” Sherlock continued, “What actually did occur makes far more sense - that perhaps I was walking out of the library, and you, having just recently come from Charms with your failing exam results, found me an easy target. You pushed me down and then proceeded to taunt me, ruining my homework in the process. A crowd gathered. John came to help. You, however, continued to persist, shoving John to the ground, a poor decision that ended, pleasantly, with his fist in your face.”

“Sherlock was being bullied, Professor,” John said. “I had to step in! That’s how the fight started.”

“I even have evidence,” said Sherlock. From within his robes he produced a dirty and mangled scrap of parchment. “My ruined homework.”

“Oh, you could have done that yourself!” Carl spat. “I’m being framed!”

“Powers,” Sherlock said slowly, aghast at the thought, “This is my _Defence Against the Dark Arts_ assignment. That’s an actually _useful_ class. It’s not _History of Magic_.”

“I see,” said Professor Hudson. “Well, boys, this is a very serious situation. We absolutely do not tolerate fighting or violence at Hogwarts, no matter the reasoning. Surely you all must understand that. No problems are _ever_ resolved with violence--”

Sherlock coughed delicately, as if he begged to differ. John had to think about it. While violence had resolved the problem of Carl’s yammering rather quickly, the problem of Carl being a complete pillock still remained. It was, admittedly, not a long-term solution.

“Particularly not the type so vicious where both parties end up in the Infirmary,” Professor Hudson finished, levelling onto John a look so disappointed that he sunk down even further into his already sinky cushioned seat.

“We do not raise our hands or wands to anyone. We never resort to violence. If you have a problem with another student, you come directly to me and I will help you resolve it. If someone is bullying you or you know someone is being bullied, you tell me immediately and I will mete out the proper punishments and help you deal with the issue,” Professor Hudson said. “That goes for all of you.”

John looked over at Sherlock, who only nodded impassively. He had seen people be nasty to Sherlock several times already, and it was hard to believe a stern talking-to from a teacher and a deduction of House points would make it all stop so easily.

“Mr. Watson,” Professor Hudson said, which caused John to snap to attention where he sat. “I really did not expect this sort of behaviour from you. From Mr. Powers, perhaps, but not you. You have such a promising career at Hogwarts. Certainly you wouldn’t want to jeopardise that?”

John frantically shook his head no, too afraid to actually form words. His face burned, inflamed with shame; Professor Hudson was so _nice_ , really, he had wanted her to think of him well.

The absolute worst part was, of course, that if given the chance - he would have done it all over again. And _gladly._

“Since this is your first offence, your punishment is Detention and a deduction of sixty House points. This is an unusual case of in-House fighting, really, and I am most disappointed in both of you. We do not hurt other students, no matter the House. But if Gryffindor loses the House Cup this year, you two would only have yourselves to blame,” Professor Hudson said. “As for you, Mr. Powers, you will be serving Detention as well, and, as much as it pains me, that will be a deduction of another sixty House points from you. And another twenty for lying to a professor.”

Carl winced. “B-but Professor! You can’t! That’s our chances at the Cup, right there!”

“I am well aware, Mr. Powers,” Professor Hudson said tightly. “Perhaps you should consider that the next time you decide to bully another student and get involved in a fight.”

 _A hundred forty House points_. John couldn’t even comprehend what it would take to make up that vast amount. Slytherin would probably win the House Cup this year! It was a thought that admittedly would have been a lot more devastating if not for the fact that at least it was Sherlock’s House, and then he wondered if he really was a House traitor for thinking like that.

“Now, Mr. Powers, this isn’t the first instance where you’ve had an issue with fighting, now is it?” Professor Hudson asked.

“No,” Carl muttered, reluctant.

“Well, then. Another transgression like this, and you’ll be suspended from Quidditch.”

“No!” Carl gasped. “Not Quidditch!”

A tiny little feeling of smugness squirmed up into John’s chest. It was the smallest consolation, really, considering that he had lost so many points and now had to serve Detention, on top of the shame of having Professor Hudson so disappointed in him, but, oh gosh, _that look on Carl’s face._ If he had the Galleons he’d pay a magical painter to paint a portrait of that look, for those blah days when he needed cheering up.

“And I should mention that we do _not_ call other students ‘fledgling Dark Wizards,’ Mr. Powers. That is both untrue and potentially very damaging. It is a very _serious_ accusation to call anyone a Dark Wizard, and if you seriously believe that someone is one, then that is a case for Ministry Investigation by the Auror Department. A false accusation, of course, is equivalent to fraud, and can result in a hefty fine at very least, and a short period of imprisonment at the most.”

Carl’s eyes widened and his mouth dropped open, and John added that expression to the list of things that he wanted to have commissioned.

“So, Mr. Powers, I’m sure you know that _none_ of the students at Hogwarts are Dark Wizards, potential Dark Wizards, Dark Wizard spawn, or anything of the sort. I shall not have you or any other student using such language or making groundless accusations. Nor do we refer to our fellow Housemates as House traitors. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Professor,” Carl nodded, mumbling.

“Mr. Holmes,” Professor Hudson said, a great deal more kindly than she’d spoken to either Carl or John. “Although I am not your Head of House, I am still your professor, and I want you to know that you can come to me with any issue at all. My door is always open.”

Sherlock made a noncommittal noise and took a bite of his mostly-creme-filling Frankenbiscuit.

“And of course, Mr. Watson, there is one more thing I forgot to mention,” Professor Hudson said.

John wondered what else he could possibly be in trouble for, and whether he should try to see if the squashy sofa could swallow him completely.

“I’m awarding you twenty House points, for your display of courage in standing up for a fellow student. While I cannot condone the outcome, it was still quite brave of you,” Professor Hudson said, and smiled at him.

John sat up a little straighter, and tried his best to hide his smile behind his cup of tea. This proved rather difficult, so he took a sip of tea instead.

“All right; now _that’s_ all settled,” Professor Hudson said, “I do think you boys all need to apologise to one another.”

“ _Sorry,_ ” mumbled Carl, not at all that word.

“Sorry,” mumbled John, sounding only slightly more sincere.

“I’m sorry,” said Sherlock, who then continued, “that you’re a little bigot.”

“Hey!” said Carl. “Professor Hudson! Did you hear that?”

“That’s all right then,” Professor Hudson said approvingly. She apparently hadn’t heard. “A fresh start for all. You ought to shake hands on it.”

John and Carl shook hands, reluctant but obliging, although it wasn’t so much a shaking as it was part arm-wrestling and part attempting to squeeze one another’s fingers off.

“I better not catch anything,” Carl muttered, as he and Sherlock were forced to clasp their hands together.

Sherlock smiled a serene little smile. “Now you wouldn’t know until next Tuesday, now would you? That _is_ how long the incubation period is, after all.”

He coughed delicately in Carl’s general direction.

“EW!” Carl cried, yanking his hand back. “Professor Hudson! Did you hear _that_?”

“Mr. Holmes, cover your mouth when you cough. Mr. Powers, no one likes a tattletale.”

“Sorry,” said Sherlock, who wasn’t at all. He coughed loudly through his fingers in Carl’s general direction.

“Professor Hudson!” Carl whinged.

“Very good, boys,” smiled Professor Hudson. “Now, who would like more tea?”

 

* * *

 

Detention was to be served in the Hogwarts greenhouses, where there was a tragic shortage of deadly plants, according to Sherlock. John thought this was probably a generally good thing, but Sherlock saw it as a sign of the school’s poor allocation of resources.

“Durmstrang has over _one hundred fifty one_ species of deadly plants,” Sherlock said.

“Wow,” said John, agreeably. “But I bet Hogwarts has a whole lot less students who go to the Infirmary with vines and leaves and stuff stuck in funny places,” he added, remembering the pictures from Sherlock’s illicit book.

“True,” Sherlock conceded.

The detention activity that afternoon consisted of collecting Bubotuber pus into bottles; a task that sounded far easier and more pleasant than it actually was. The main stem of the plant writhed of its own volition, as if in sheer discomfort from the ripe yellow pustules that dotted its slimy black body. They both had to wear their Dragon-hide gloves to protect their skin from the caustic effects of the pus. When the pustules burst, the acrid smell of something resembling petrol filled the air - “As if the Bubotuber farted,” John noted. Sherlock told him this was impossible, of course, as a Bubotuber was not a type of plant that possessed an intestinal tract or an anus.

“Oi! Hold still so I can squeeze you,” John told the Bubotuber sternly, but it paid him no heed. He gave one of the shiny swellings on its body a firm squeeze while it wiggled around, sending a projectile spurt of yellow-green goo arcing up into the air and splattering onto a desk, completely missing the bottle.

“Here, let me see that,” Sherlock said, and put his hands on the wriggling plant to restrain it. “Now squeeze it and catch it in the bottle,” he instructed John. “Pinch it with your thumb and index finger on both sides until it bursts.”

“Oh,” said John, as the swelling popped with a satisfying wet _splat_ , and then, “Ew,” because of the smell.

“It’s just like popping a giant bubble wrap,” John noted. “Well, pus-filled bubble wrap. That grows on a slimy, squirmy black potato.”

Okay, maybe it was not so much like bubble wrap at all.

“What’s bubble wrap?” asked Sherlock.

“It’s plastic bubble paper,” said John. “Don’t ask me what plastic is, I don’t know, only that it makes up loads of stuff, like trays and furniture and toothbrushes and probably even some people. But the bubble wrap is like this stuff you wrap stuff in so it doesn’t get damaged when you send it in the post. Because we don’t use owls. Or Muggles don’t use owls.”

“What do they use then, if not owls?”

“Planes and ships, I think,” said John. “And men in vans.”

“That is so, so strange,” said Sherlock, as he squeezed a pimple on a writhing slick black potato so that he could collect the vegetable pus in a jar.

“I could try and get you some bubble wrap,” said John. “It’s exactly like popping these things...except without the pus and the wriggling and the petrol farts. They don’t explode, though.”

“Pity,” said Sherlock. “Most things could be improved by explosions.”

“Yeah,” said John. “Like how most people can be improved by turning them into newts?”

“ _Exactly,_ ” Sherlock said, with deepest conviction, and obvious approval.

Sherlock was very good at this task. John suspected he was good at most tasks. He had filled five stoppered bottles full of thick yellow-green goo already, in comparison to John’s one-and-barely-a-half.

"Sherlock, you really don't have to do this."

"Nonsense," Sherlock replied brusquely, and gave a pustule a vicious squeeze.

"It’s already enough that you’re here. You didn’t even get a detention! I'm fairly sure I'm meant to do this alone. I mean, not that I’m not _happy_ that you’re here, but I don’t want you to get into trouble for helping me! I bet they wouldn’t like it if I had help."

"Point," Sherlock said. He carefully placed the bottle down onto the table with its goo-filled brethren. He then turned and, without warning or provocation, shoved a great glass terrarium full of Horned Slugs onto the floor. John watched it happen with fascinated horror; how it slid off the table, and then toppled. It shattered with a loud crash, showering glass shards and slugs all over the floor.

"Sherlock!" John cried, aghast.

"Oops," said Sherlock blandly.

"What did you go and do that for?” John said, barely able to comprehend the carnage that lay around him now: glass and squirming slugs _everywhere._ “Have you lost your mind?"

Sherlock shrugged. "Now no one can, with any real credibility, accuse me of helping you."

John thought about it.

"That makes terrible sense," he said, awed and a little terrified, but mostly impressed, all at once.

"But the slugs..." John said. "Well, now they're all getting away." He paused, watching the slugs for a moment. "Um. I think.”

He observed the slugs for another long moment. "That... _might_ be what they're trying to do?"

"I think we'll manage to catch them," said Sherlock. "They are rather..."

"Sluggish?" John offered helpfully.

"I was going to say phlegmatic, but yes,” said Sherlock. “That too."

“It’s going to be a heck of a time cleaning up,” said John, bending down to pick up some of the larger pieces of broken glass.

“John!” Sherlock said, scandalised. “Leave that alone. Firstly, that’s evidence. Secondly, that’s what _house elves_ are for.”

“All right,” John said, dubiously. He placed the piece of glass back on the floor. Sherlock continued to squeeze Bubotubers, perfectly at home in a hazardous work environment where they were surrounded by glass and gastropods.

John stared at him for a moment, then shrugged and got back to work as well. He had a lot of catching up to do.

“You know, you’re not much good at this,” Sherlock said, eyeing the way that John was currently strangling a Bubotuber.

“I’m _trying,_ Sherlock,” John said, and because Sherlock was _being_ trying, made a grab at the Bubotuber and squeezed it so hard that it somehow managed to slip out of his hands and wriggle away from him. It squirmed wildly once it was free, as if performing a victory dance to mock John with its triumph.

“Ugh,” said John.

“You’re not much good at Potions either,” said Sherlock, who was clearly on a streak at pointing out all of John’s deficiencies.

John gave a piece of glass on the ground a little kick, startling a few slugs that, in response...stayed put.

“That’s hardly fair,” he whined. “It’s usually Bill who blows up the cauldron.”

“What you need, then, _obviously_ ,” said Sherlock, “is a better partner.”

“Oh,” said John, and looked over to Sherlock, who was completely focused on his plant as he spoke. Sherlock did not look up at him, and was, instead, prodding at one of the growths on the plant.

“You’re not stellar at Potions,” Sherlock told the Bubotuber, “but your current partners will drag down your grade. If you had a half-competent partner you might even get an Exceeds Expectations, which would of course, be essential if you one day wanted to become a Healer.”

John didn’t even bother to ask Sherlock how he knew his future career plans when he had little to no idea himself. That wasn’t all that important. The more pressing question was whether it was worth asking Sherlock to be his partner again. The likelihood of Sherlock saying no again was as high as the highest point of a Bouncing Bulb’s trajectory (which was, to John’s experience, quite high). He didn’t want to the bumbling partner who sabotaged Sherlock’s perfect grade.

Then again, the worst that could happen was that Sherlock would say no again, and John had already been through that once before. Well, technically, the worst thing that could happen was John getting Bubotuber pus in his eye, but that could happen whether or not he asked Sherlock to be his partner.

So John took a deep breath and said, “I think you’re brilliant at Potions.”

“Stating the obvious,” Sherlock drawled, but he stood up a little straighter.

And then John took another breath and drew upon some of that renowned Gryffindor courage. “Sherlock, do you want to be my Potions partner?”

Sherlock looked at him for a worry-filled moment that dragged on so long that John thought one of the slugs had actually made a successful break for it, all the way from one table leg to the other.

“Well, I _suppose,_ ” said Sherlock finally. “You need to know what it’s like to work with a competent partner for once. It certainly can’t _hurt_ your grade any more.”

He looked at John, very quickly, and then back to his writhy black potato again. He proceeded to scowl at it, as if displeased with its very existence.

“All right then,” John said, smiling. Then he added, “Partner.”

And maybe the pustule that Sherlock had just popped had been particularly satisfying, because he was smiling at his plant now.

He was so pleased, in fact, that he didn’t even notice the slug that had started to make its way up his leg.

John began to giggle.

“What?” said Sherlock, looking at John, and then followed his line of sight. “Oh, _yuck_.”

“I think he likes you,” John said, still laughing as Sherlock attempted to disengage the slug as it stubbornly clung to his leg. It was a rather cute slug, as far as slugs went, patterned with spots - so that it was like a slimy little legless leopard. John wondered if there were any slugs that came with zebra stripes, but so far he had not seen any.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Sherlock. “First of all, slugs, Horned or otherwise, are not capable of emotion, and secondly, they’re hermaphroditic.” At John’s blank stare he informed him, “They’ve got both boy and girl parts.”

“Oh,” said John. “I guess we should ask him or her if he or she wants to be a him or her.”

“Just call it an ‘it’,” Sherlock said, managing, at last, to pull the slug off his leg and placing it upon the table. It slowly began to inch towards Sherlock again.

“But that’s a bit rude,” said John, “Maybe we can give him or her a name. Then we can call her or him by his or her name.”

“It _has_ a name,” said Sherlock. “Horned Slug. _Limax cornus._ ”

“No, Sherlock! A proper name.”

“That _is_ its proper name.”

“A _real_ name, then. You know. Like Lester or Minnie or Bob.”

Sherlock made a little sound of disgust. “We’re not naming the slug _Bob._ ”

“Then you name it,” John said.

“If it’s going to have a name, then it should be a halfway decent name at least. Like, say...Rachmaninoff.”

John considered this for a moment. It was a rather good name. A right proper name.

“Okay,” he said, and then clicked his tongue. “Here, Rocky,” he called. “Come here, Rocky.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Firstly, what’s the point of us giving it a respectable name if you’re only going to butcher it, and secondly, that is _not_ how you call a slug.”

“Then how _do_ you call a slug?” John asked, fascinated by the very thought that there was a proper way to go about such things, and curious as to whether this was common knowledge amongst all Wizarding children, or something just Sherlock knew.  
Sherlock was a treasure trove of useful information.

“You can’t call it by its name, it’s not a dog,” Sherlock said. “And even a dog wouldn’t be able to respond to the name you gave it only five seconds ago.”

“Oh,” said John.

“You’d have to entice it with food or something. Most slugs eat leaves and detritus. Sometimes flowers. Fortunately for us, we are in a greenhouse,” Sherlock said, and plucked a leaf from some nearby wild daisies.

“Rachmaninoff,” Sherlock said, and held out the leaf.

John watched with rapt attention, as the slug slowly inched across the table.

“Do you think we could train him or her to learn his or her name?” John asked.

“Doubtful,” Sherlock said, “Slugs don’t really have brains.”

“Right,” John said, understanding - because slugs appeared to be made of mostly slime and not much brain at all - but nonetheless, a little disappointed.

“But we could try. I haven’t run an experiment like that before,” Sherlock added thoughtfully, looking at John and then back to the slug again. “Yes. I think that might be an area worthy of study.”

“Yes!” said John, and then another triumphant little “yes!” as Rachmaninoff, or Rocky, if one preferred, the slug finally made it to nibble at the leaf Sherlock held in his hand.

“See, Sherlock?” John said. “I think you made a friend.”

“Yeah,” Sherlock said, and then smiled at him in such a way that John felt like the sun had just come out and it was shining through the glass panes of the greenhouse. It made him feel like the insides of his chest were being coated with a gooey sort of happiness.

“Maybe I did,” Sherlock said.

 

* * *

 

By dinnertime, news of Gryffindor’s devastating loss of House points had spread. The moment John entered the Great Hall, he was treated to a thunderous round of applause from the Slytherin table.

“Way to go, Watson, yea!” a Slytherin girl smirked, standing up to applaud as John walked by.

“Rah, rah, Watson,” a Slytherin boy cheered blandly. “He’s our man.”

The Gryffindor table, of course, was nowhere near as receptive. As soon as John approached, all the empty seats suddenly disappeared, his Housemates’ backs turned to him, like elephants closing the gaps in the herd.

“Why don’t you go find a seat at the Slytherin table?” hissed Athelney Jones, a dark-skinned fifth year boy with green eyes; the only thing John knew about him was that he was on the Quidditch team. And that he now hated John, apparently. “I’m sure you’d be welcome there.”

“It’s a shame when people are Sorted wrong, isn’t it?” said Violet Smith, who John had thought was rather pretty until she said that. She tossed her long blonde hair. “Maybe we can petition to have traitors transferred.”

John stepped backwards, hot lump forming in his throat, deep breath to stave off the annoying prickling in his eyes. There was an ache in his stomach that had nothing to do with hunger.

Although the hunger was a factor, too, as he stood there, unable to find a seat.

It was such a relief, then, to see Bill and Mike wave him over, although the moment he sat down, there was a noticeable shuffling noise as students shifted down the table, away from him.

“A _hundred twenty_ House points!” Bill bemoaned, and looked wretchedly down at his bowl. “I could just _drown myself_ in this soup. Ugh. If only it weren’t split-pea. Yuck.”

“Good,” said Mike. “Because I’m sure your drowning would only cause us to lose _more_ House points, and then we’d lose the House Cup for sure.”

“The whole House _hates_ me now,” John mumbled, head in his hands. Mike tsk’d and piled John’s plate up high with food, which was his answer - and reasonably so - for most of what ailed people in life.

“Aww, that’s not true,” said Bill.

“It isn’t?” John asked, daring to lift his head up.

“Of course not,” Bill reassured him. “They hate Carl Powers, too. And Sherlock Holmes, of course, but that’s nothing new.”

“So really, it’s not just you,” Mike nodded.

“Ughhhh,” said John, and nearly put his face into a pudding.

“The way I figure it,” said Bill, “about 20% of Gryffindor House is on your side, 20% of Gryffindor is on Powers’ side, and the remaining 59% hate you both equally. The other 1% being us, of course, who are your true friends and will stand by you no matter what poor, awful decisions you make or bad company you keep.”

“Sounds about right,” said Mike.

“How did you get those numbers?” asked John, who was doubtful of Bill’s skills as a statistician. “Did you just make them up?”

“Sounds about right,” said Mike.

“I took a poll,” said Bill.

  
“He took a guess,” said Mike.

“Still,” said Bill. “Not to worry, John. The whole House doesn’t hate you. Just a large majority of it.”

“Ugh,” said John, putting his face into his hands again.

“Just give it time,” Bill said. “Eventually, one day, in the far-away future, everybody will forget all about the-” his voice caught in his throat - “ _one...hundred...twenty..._ House points...” The last few words were a struggle, and Bill courageously fought back a little sob. He then joined John in the face-in-hands movement, as he shook and whimpered to himself.

“ _Waugh,_ ” wailed Bill.

“ _Waugh,_ ” agreed John.

“Chocolate mice!” Mike said brightly, and pushed two plates towards his mournful Housemates. “Chocolate mice for everyone!”

 

* * *

 

On Monday, John was alternately ignored by his Housemates or shoved past when they walked by. Being of small size and stature, this sent him on some spectacular stumbles, but he managed to recover and stand his ground, only dropping his books once.

Despite Bill’s not-really-reassuring statistics, he still felt that he was Gryffindor House’s Undesirable No. 1.

John had never been picked last for a sports team before. He had never had to eat lunch alone. He’d always been invited to birthday parties, he got Valentines on Valentine’s Day, and he had always had mates on the playground. His new rapid decline in social status left him reeling, adrift in a strange place where almost no one wanted to sit next to him in class. As if he had somehow contracted a mysterious, infectious disease, or a miasma of stench clung to him, of which he was woefully unaware. He understood _why_ his Housemates didn’t like him now, but he wished that they would, even if it was just a little bit.

What he didn’t understand was the laughter that had started to follow him in the halls, Monday at school.

It started with a group of Ravenclaw girls who giggled and pointed as John walked by on his way to his first class. They immediately shushed when he turned around to look at them suspiciously, and then resumed once he’d turned his back to them again. This continued with a group of Hufflepuff students he’d passed next, and then there was snickering from a bunch of Slytherins, and he was sure that some of his fellow Housemates would have laughed at him too, if it weren’t for the fact that the majority of his House was currently giving him the silent treatment.

It was enough to make John wonder whether he had put his uniform on backwards that morning, or perhaps he had gotten some eggs in his hair from breakfast, or perhaps someone had hexed something truly awful, like a troll’s face, onto his back.

A thorough check in the mirror in the third floor toilets revealed absolutely nothing, except for two older boys, a Ravenclaw and a Slytherin, who abruptly stopped talking when he entered. They then made rude gestures and faces behind him while John stood at the mirrors, as well as strange attempts to measure his height. The whole encounter left John frankly confused and slightly terrified.

The whispers and giggles continued to follow John down the school corridors, but nothing loud enough for him to actually discern words. He bit his lip, and held his head high, and tried not to hear it, and if Bill and Mike pressed a little closer to him and talked a little louder, John didn’t say anything about it.

“Do you think people are acting strangely towards me today?” John asked them in Charms class, as they were practising the Summoning Charm.

“What? No, of course not,” Bill said quickly. “People always act strange. Everybody’s strange. Duck!” The three of them ducked just in time to avoid the swarm of duck feather quill bundles that sailed over their heads.

“Bill,” said John, “They’re trying to summon things that are likely to hit us in the head.”

“They’re just really shit at summoning,” Bill reassured him.

“Yeah,” said Mike, and then, “Doves!” They ducked again as the flock of flapping and protesting doves soared right through the space where their heads used to be.

 

Matters did not much improve at lunch, when, once again, there was no place to sit at the Gryffindor table.

“Sorry, seat’s taken,” Violet drawled, placing one slender hand on the spot next to her.

John moved down the table.

“That seat’s taken too,” she said, eyeing him the way one might a bug that had crawled up onto a picnic basket. A particularly large, yucky bug in a Gryffindor scarf. That it did not deserve to wear.

“There’s room enough for at least six people here,” John said, clutching his books a little tighter against his chest. “Who’s it taken by, another Quidditch team? Because the Gryffindor one’s already sitting down.”

“These seats are taken,” Violet said, not skipping a beat. “They’re all taken. No room.”

Of course, it wasn’t until John had already walked away that it occurred to him what he _should_ have said. _Enjoy lunch with your six invisible friends!_ That would have been perfect! For a brief, wild moment he considered running back and shouting it at her, but thankfully sanity returned to him before he made an even bigger arse of himself.

It was a relief when he finally found Bill and Mike, sitting all the way down in the corner. They were isolated from the rest of the table - and it became even more isolated once John sat down.

“Why are you both wearing moustaches?” John asked.

“See, Bill?” Mike said. “I told you that your disguises don’t work.”

“They only don’t work because it’s our John,” Bill protested. “He only recognises us because he’s so close to us!”

“We’re wearing moustaches because Bill wanted to protect his identity so he could keep hanging around you. _I’m_ wearing one because Bill didn’t want to look stupid wearing one alone,” Mike explained. “As you can see, he still looks stupid, but now we look stupid together.”

"You don't want to be seen with me?" John asked, voice tremulous. He never thought that _Bill_ , of all people, would be ashamed to be his friend. _Bill._

"No no no, John, it's not like that!" Bill said quickly. "It's just that it's nice to be able to eat lunch without getting food pelted at you. It's for safety reasons. And!" He said, rummaging around in his satchel and producing something that resembled a little golden caterpillar. "I haven't forgotten about you! Now you can wear one too!"

John, needing to feel solidarity, allowed Bill to put the moustache on him; it affixed itself immediately to his upper lip and made his nose twitch a little, almost like a rabbit’s.

“I feel really silly,” said John.

“Welcome to the club,” said Mike.

“Yes,” said Bill, “But you look so _debonair!”_

John and Mike shared a glance that said that they didn’t know if “debonair” was quite the word for it, but to be fair, at least they hadn’t gotten pelted with food this whole time.

“The only thing that could make you even more handsome is a top hat,” said Bill.

“Not this again,” Mike groaned.

“No top hats, Bill,” said John, decisively.

“Drat!” said Bill, and curled the ends of his moustache between thumb and forefinger. “Foiled again.”

“Anyway,” Mike said, “John - _someone_ \- and I think it’s obvious who - has been going around spreading terrible rumours about you. That’s why people are acting so weird.”

“Really cruel and awful rumours,” Bill chimed in. “So of course everybody believes them.”

“What are they saying?” John said, dismayed.

"They're saying that your mother is actually a dwarf," Bill said. He looked John up and down. "You know, on account of your being so short and all."

"I know what that implies!" John snapped.

"Didn't they say his mother was a house elf?" Mike said, in what John was certain was a terribly misguided attempt to be helpful. "I'm sure it was that."

"Come to think of it, I think it was both," Bill said contemplatively. "John has two mothers and one of them is a dwarf and the other one is a house elf."

A _dwarf_ and a _house elf?_ John spluttered. "That doesn't even make any sense! That's not even possible!"

"It does if they are less beans," Mike informed him sagely.

"What do beans have to do with anything?" John needed to know. "And why does the number of them matter?"

Bill rolled his eyes. "Not less beans, Mike, _LIZ_ Beans! It's Liz-Beans."

John blinked. Bill spoke as if that ought to have clarified matters, but instead he found himself more and more confused. "Who's Liz? Why does she have beans? What do the beans have to do with anything? Are they magic beans?"

Bill threw up his hands. "Honestly, John, you can be such a _Muggleborn_ sometimes. Liz-Beans is what you call it when two ladies make a baby."

John looked to Mike to see if he could make heads or tail - or sprout or root - of the matter. Mike only shrugged.

"Oh gosh, you guys don’t _know?_ ” Bill said. “The Liz-Bean is the magic bean and then there's a baby and that's why they call two ladies Liz-Beans.

“The first lady who wanted to make a baby with another lady was called Liz," he continued, as if this were all very common knowledge. "I think. That _has_ to be how it works. I mean, it makes sense, right?"

"So they're saying I came from a bean?" John said, not knowing quite why he should be insulted, yet he felt a little slighted regardless. He looked down the table to see if any beans were being served, and whether he should be concerned that they were human beans.

"What they are saying,” said Bill, “Is that you have Liz-Bean dwarf and house elf parents but you're still basically Muggleborn and you don't have enough money and also that's why you have a voice like a girl."

"I do _not_ sound like a girl!" John squeaked in indignation.

“No, no, you don’t,” Mike said kindly. He paused, thoughtfully, and added, “And even if you did, you would sound like a manly girl.”

“Yeah!” Bill chimed in. “The _manliest_ of girls. The kind with a moustache.”

“Not helping!” John cried.

“It’s all right, John,” Mike said, and patted his shoulder to comfort him. “Manly women are to be admired.”

“Right!” said Bill. “Just look at Helga Hufflepuff!”

“ _Really_ not helping!” John said, as he really did not want to envision himself in braids.

Too late.

“Well,” Bill said primly, with forced casualness, “you know what _would_ help you out, is if you stopped associating yourself with Sherlock Holmes.”

John looked at him in disbelief. “Bill...not this again. We’ve been over this.”

“That’s not what Bill means,” Mike said quickly. “There have been rumours about you _and_ Sherlock, too, and that only makes the whole situation worse.”

“What do you mean?” John asked. “What could they possibly say about me and Sherlock?”

“They’re basically saying that you’re his house elf slave, and you’re so _sub-serving_ to him,” said Bill. “Or that he’s cast the Imperius Curse on you and that’s why you’re hanging around him all of a sudden, because no one would subject themselves to that willingly. It’s bad for both of your reputations, really.”

“And they say that he makes you do gross and nasty things,” Mike chimed in.

John made a face. “Like _what_ , exactly?”

“I dunno, like wash his feet, prolly,” Bill said. “Like with your _tongue_ maybe, even.”

 _“Augh!”_ Mike and John said in unison.

“I’m gonna be ill,” Mike said faintly.

“I _know,_ ” said Bill, nodding sagely. “And like, if you stopped being seen with him the rumours would stop, you know? For both your sakes.”

“But that’s not fair,” said John.

“What’s not fair is the way you’re being treated,” Mike said.

“And it’s not like you’re going to be able to make people _stop,_ ” said Bill. “They’re just going to keep on saying it, and the more you’re seen together, the worse it’s going to get, because nobody really likes him. I don’t think even his own Housemates like him.”

“They might,” said Mike. “They’re Slytherins, so they’re all mes--” He cut himself off at John’s sharp look. “Sorry, John.”

“But you know it’s true,” Bill continued doggedly. “John, here are the facts. You are used to having loads of friends. Holmes is used to having none. You can’t continue on like this. It disrupts the natural order of things! It’s not right. Is that what you want? To be against nature?”

“Maybe, yeah,” said John, tilting his chin up. “Who cares about stupid nature?” He stood up and peeled off his moustache, slapping it down on the table.

“John, where are you going?” Mike asked.

“I’m not hungry anymore,” John replied, gathering up his books as well as a few pumpkin pasties. “And I need to study.”

“Well, _now_ you’ve gone and done it,” Mike chided Bill, and smacked him on the arm.

“Ow!” said Bill.

“And your moustache looks stupid,” said Mike.

“Double ow!” cried Bill, clutching at his heart.

 

* * *

 

John headed for the library, head down, careful not to make eye contact with anyone. This vantage point that also allowed him to keep a close watch for any stray legs that might suddenly appear in his path. If he walked briskly enough he didn’t have to overhear anything, and he was only knocked into twice - both times happening so quickly that they could have been interpreted as accidents, if he so chose.

Hogwarts had a library that was so grand that John thought he’d only be able to find the proper word to describe it if he looked it up in one of the books found there. Walls upon walls of books stretched, seemingly, to the heavens, all of it lit by both candlelight and the sunlight filtering through the intricate glass windows. At a certain time of day, depending upon the season, the sunlight struck the glass just right, so that it scattered little diamonds of rainbows all over one’s books and scrolls. In the summer this happened in late afternoon. In the winter the snow piled up in the corners of the windows, and the fires burned in their fireplaces, and the room held a certain rosy light that reflected the sky outside.

It possessed that comforting smell of old books and knowledge, the way that all libraries do, and it was magic, as all libraries are, only this being a magical library, it was particularly full of magic. John felt at home at once.

The only problem was that it was very large, and the shelves towering and arranged in labyrinthine formation, which made it very difficult to find anybody inside it, nevermind a Slytherin first year who usually did not want to be found.

Sherlock, after all, was the main reason that John had immediately thought _library._ But on his third wander ‘round _J, K, L,_ his fourth wander through _T_ thru _V,_ and his fifth time around _#,?, & !,_ looking lost (and getting more lost than he looked), John was beginning to feel like someone had dumped a bowl of alphabet soup in brain. It was a cause as lost as he currently was.

 _“Hey!”_ a female voice whispered loudly - as loudly as possible, really, for it to still be a whisper. It was loud enough for John to look around fearfully; they were all very mindful of the wrath of Madam Pince. Legend had it that Madame Pince had once had a mouse thrown out of the library for sneezing too disruptively.

“Watson, right?”

John turned to see an older Ravenclaw girl, with light brown skin and thick, curly black hair. “Yeah?” he said, tentatively. He then regretted revealing his true identity right away. While she didn’t look the type to start hurling insults or to push him around, it would have been far smarter to say he was...Wilson, or something, until he was certain that she was not a threat.

Sherlock would certainly have given her a false identity.

“I’m Sally,” she said. She held out her hand and smiled. John was relieved. It was the first time all day that someone had smiled at him, and not out of derision. “Sally Donovan.”

“John,” he said, and shook her hand. “John, well...you know. Watson,” he finished lamely.

Sally only laughed a little, quietly and not unkindly. “You’re an interesting one, John,” she said. “Who are you?”

“I just told you already,” John said, brow furrowed, and she had already known. He had, in fact, stupidly told her twice.

“No, I mean, who _are_ you? They say that you’re friends with that freak, Sherlock Holmes. But you’re not his friend. He doesn't have friends. So who are you?”

John bristled, drawing himself up to his full height, despite the fact that this was still quite a bit shorter than Sally. “I’m his friend. Maybe he _didn’t_ have friends, but he has one now. That’s who I am.”

Sally shook her head, regarding him with a look of near pity. “I don’t mean to offend, John. I just wanted to give you a bit of advice. It’s not too late. You need to stay away from that guy.”

“Why?” John asked, but he already suspected the answer. He felt his jaw tighten for a moment. “I don’t care about what people are saying.”

“Well, maybe you should,” Sally said, quite seriously. “Not just the rumours about _him,_ it’s affecting your life too. Look, you seem like a nice, normal boy, and I know what they say about you isn’t true. Most of it’s just because you’re associating yourself with Sherlock Holmes. If you stopped hanging around him, everybody would forget about all of this and your life would return to normal. You could be normal. Popular, even.”

“Maybe I don’t want to be popular,” said John, who had only just had his first taste of what it meant not to be.

“But it’s not just something trivial like that,” said Sally. “Do you know why they say those things about him - that he meddles with Dark Magic and things like that?”

“Because he looks like some stupid old dead wizard,” said John. “And he’s in Slytherin.”

“Yes,” said Sally grimly. “But that’s not all. He did - and still does - perform experiments on people. That’s not a rumour. Kids have lost hair and teeth! I’m surprised no one’s lost an eye! _That’s_ the reason he doesn’t have friends. He doesn’t care _who_ gets hurt as long as he gets to have fun.”

She’d gotten more incensed, more animated as she spoke, words coming quicker and faster. Finally, in one sharp, angry motion, she lifted up her thick hair to reveal a thin white scar along her ear that ran down the edge of it, all the way to the lobe.

“He’s dangerous,” she hissed through her teeth. “Do you believe me now?”

“That had to have been an accident,” John said, softly.

Sally snorted with derision. _“As if--!”_ she began, and then cut herself off quickly when the shadowy form of Madame Pince swooped by behind them.

“As if,” Sally continued in a whisper, “there’s such a thing as accidents with Sherlock Holmes. The weirder magic is, the darker it is, the more he likes it. And you know what...? One day, just ‘experimenting’ isn’t going to be enough. One day, he’s going to be _practising_ Dark Magic and then people will get _seriously_ hurt. I wouldn’t be surprised if one day we’ll be standing around a body and Sherlock Holmes’ll be the one who put it there. ”

“Why would he do something like that?” John asked.

“Because he’s a psychopath,” Sally explained, as if she were speaking to a particularly intelligent piece of dusty fluff. “Psychopaths get bored.”

But Sherlock was _eleven,_ John wanted to point out. Then again, psychopaths were probably eleven at some point in their lives. They didn’t just pop out of their mothers, fully-grown and in their thirties, and start murdering people.

John thought about Sherlock sitting with him in the Infirmary when he’d been hurt, and how he’d pressed the bandage to his wound for so long. He thought about Sherlock showing him his _illicit_ plant book with all the graphic illustrations. He thought about Sherlock telling the Bubotuber plant that it needed a better Potions partner, and the way that they had named their slug Rachmaninoff, and he bit his own lip hard.

“Listen, do yourself a favour and stay away from Sherlock Holmes,” Sally said. “You don’t want to go messing around with the wrong sort.”

“I think I can figure out the right sort for myself, thanks,” John said.

Sally stared at him, hard, for a long moment, before shaking her head. Whether the expression on her face was pity or disgust or sadness, John couldn’t tell, and it was just as well.

“Don’t say I never warned you,” she said darkly. She turned on her heel and left, leaving all John alone in the stacks. Her footsteps were loud in the forced quiet, until they, too, faded away.

 

* * *

 

 

It was late afternoon by the time John left the library, the hallways warm and golden with the afternoon sunlight, streaked with the long shadows of statues stretching out onto sun-warmed flagstone.

The hallways were eerily quiet, empty of the normal hustle and bustle of students. The heavy, oppressive silence made John think of a ghost town, or perhaps, even, a _library._ He would not have been surprised even if a tumbleweed had rolled by. A herd of them had broken loose from the Greenhouse last Thursday, after all, and were now roaming the school, wild and free.

John rounded the corner to find a mysterious figure down near the end of the hall, his back to him. His silhouette stood stark and striking, the sunlight a glowing corona around his dark robes.

“Um, excuse me,” John said, for this figure was standing directly in his path.

“John Watson,” said the figure in an ominous tone. He whirled around then, to face John, his robes swirling around him as he did; they flowed out, dark and graceful, before settling gently to the ground.

John found himself staring up at the Head Boy, a Slytherin, tall and imposing. His eyes widened for a moment, wondering if he was in trouble, before he considered the fact that he had every right to be here. It was a free hallway, after all.

“Yes,” John said, and slowly approached him. “Do you have something to say to me?” It was no use denying who he was, really, and it seemed like _everybody_ had something to say to him today, none of it any good.

"You don't seem very afraid," the Slytherin boy remarked, with barely-suppressed amusement. He stepped in closer, polished shoes tapping on the flagstone, forcing John to tilt his head back to make eye contact.

John looked at him, this Head Boy who loomed over him, his uniform pressed and perfect. His robes were certainly the very expensive type. A golden ray of sunlight struck his Head Boy badge and reflected off of it, temporarily blinding John for a moment. He was a seventh year and the smartest, brightest boy in all the school, and he had the power to probably take away 100 House points if he wanted to. Probably.

John swallowed, squared his shoulders and set his jaw. "You don't seem very frightening."

"Ah, yes...the bravery of the little Gryffindor. Bravery is by far the kindest word for stupidity, don't you think?"

John frowned. He had heard something similar to that before, but now he couldn't quite place who had said it.

The Head Boy continued, "What is your connection to Sherlock Holmes?"

"He's my friend," said John, defiantly. "Who are _you?_ "

“An interested party,” the Head Boy replied, which told John a grand total of absolutely nothing.

“Interested in Sherlock?” John asked. “Why? I’m guessing you’re not friends.”

“No, not like you two are,” the Head Boy said blandly, and John was trying to decide if he was being mocked. It was very hard to tell. “How many friends do you imagine he has? I am the closest thing to a friend that Sherlock Holmes is capable of having.”

“And what’s that?” John wanted to know.

“An enemy,” the Head Boy replied, all too easily.

“An enemy?” John whispered. He had never met anybody’s enemy before, and thusly had no experience with them, although this Head Boy did look like he could easily have played a Bond villain, with his haughty features and the cold look in his grey-blue eyes. Although he was far too young Bond villain, to be sure. It would have to be one of those prequel type movies where James Bond was still in school, training to be a spy, and the Head Boy would be going to Villain Academy.

They didn’t allow evil people to be Head Boys, did they? Surely there was some sort of screening process for that. Studying to be an Evil Mastermind certainly wasn’t part of the Hogwarts Curriculum.

“Sometimes,” the Head Boy admitted, which only further confused matters for John. Being a part-time enemy probably wasn’t very lucrative. “In his mind, certainly. If you were to ask him, depending upon his mood, he might even say archenemy. He does love to be dramatic.”

John looked the Head Boy up and down, considering his perfectly coiffed hair and the way the light outlined him in stark contrast, half-shadowing his face. “Well, it’s a good thing you’re above all that,” John said.

“Do you plan to continue your association with Sherlock Holmes?” the Head Boy asked him.

John narrowed his eyes at him. It wasn’t _illegal_ to be friends with Sherlock, last he checked. It wasn’t even a misdemeanour. You couldn’t deduct _House Points_ for being _friends_ with someone.

“I could be wrong,” said John carefully, “but I think...that’s none of your business.”

The Head Boy looked down his nose at him. “If you do intend to remain friends with Sherlock Holmes, I’d be happy to pay you a meaningful sum of money on a regular basis to ease your way.”

“Why?”

“Your robes come from Madame Malkin’s; standard issue, medium weight fabric, moderate pricing, made even more affordable by the fact that they are last season’s designs, leftover stock on sale for 50% off. If you had an older brother rather than a sister you’d be wearing secondhand robes. Your books are handed down from your sister. Your family isn’t wealthy. Comfortable, perhaps, but not enough to be able to afford you any luxury. I am certain you don’t get an allowance. Imagine what you could buy with the extra money, John. Wonders beyond your little Muggle-raised imagination.”

“What do you want in return?” John asked, suspiciously. It was the first bribe offer he’d ever gotten, and people generally did not bribe someone because they wanted wholesome things, like help walking their dog.

“Information. Nothing indiscreet. Nothing you’d feel… uncomfortable with. Just tell me what he’s up to. Maybe some insurance that he does his homework,” the Head Boy answered, in such an ominous tone that John wondered if they chained you up in the Dungeons in Slytherin House if you didn’t do your homework.

“ I will even offer you a weekly care package from Honeydukes to sweeten the deal. All the Chocolate Frogs and Fizzing Whizbees and Ice Mice you could possibly stomach,” the Head Boy continued, which was an awfully tempting offer. Fizzing Whizbees were the _best._

“You want me to spy on him for money,” John said dubiously.

“And sweets,” the Head Boy reminded him.

“Why?”

“I worry about him,” the Head Boy said. “Constantly.”

John supposed that Sherlock was probably a cause of worry for many people, only in very different ways.

“That’s nice of you,” he decided. Even if the Slytherin Head Boy was intimidating, overbearing, and frankly quite frightening, perhaps it was nice to see that the older students in this school took an interest in the younger ones.

“But I would prefer for various reasons that my concern go unmentioned,” the Head Boy continued. “We have what you might call a… complicated relationship.”

Of course, John considered, it was always possible that the information could be used for the forces of evil. You just didn’t know anymore, with anybody, and with what could be used to serve the shadowy forces of evil.

Maybe he was spending a little too much time around Bill.

“No,” John decided, easily. The less information people had about Sherlock the better, considering that he’d seen firsthand already the damage that had been done when people knew nothing at all.

The Head Boy quirked a brow. “But I haven’t mentioned a figure.”

“Don’t bother,” said John.

“You’re very loyal, very quickly,” the Head Boy remarked. The corner of his lip curled with amusement. “Perhaps you were Sorted wrong. Maybe you ought to have been in Hufflepuff, after all.”

“I’m loyal to my friends,” John declared, staring the much older, much taller boy directly in the eye. “And it’s not the only thing about me.”

“Ah,” said the Head Boy, who looked, infuriatingly, even more amused. “Could it be that you’ve decided to trust Sherlock Holmes, of all people?”

“And why not?” John bristled.

“I’m sure you have already heard what they say about him. And now, by extension, what they say about you. You’re the type to make friends easily, and yet you have chosen to align yourself with someone so suspect, whose presence in your life has already drastically affected your potential popularity and happiness during your time here at school. You could easily find another friend, Mr. Watson, one who is less complicated and difficult. I imagine people have already warned you to stay away from him.”

“Are we done here?” John asked, his own gaze unwavering, although he was starting to get a cramp in his neck from looking up so much. “I have to get to dinner eventually, and you’re standing in my way.”

“Yes, I suppose we are,” the Head Boy said with a little smile, teeth glinting and badge glinting. “Welcome to Hogwarts, Mr. Watson. I hope you do not regret the side you have chosen.”

He stepped to the side, allowing John to pass.

“Although I wouldn’t worry so much about hurrying to dinner,” he said. “I don’t imagine there will be a seat for you, anyway.”

 

* * *

 

Come dinner time, all the empty seats at the Gryffindor table had, predictably, not-so-mysteriously disappeared by the time John made it to the table. (Bill offered, generously, to let John sit in his lap). Fortunately, John had already decided to take his dinner to the Gryffindor Common Room.

That was where Harry found him. John was surprised to see her alone, detached from her usual group of giggling ladies. He hadn’t seen really Harry alone since they’d first boarded the Hogwarts Express, and had rather thought she’d gotten absorbed into the group as the fourth head of some amorphous, giggling four-headed monster. Or maybe it was like being part of some magical secret society where you always had to be in contact with at least two other members under threat of death. Or a bad hair day.

He was fairly sure that this was how girls worked.

“Hey, John,” Harry said, sitting down and nicking an eclair off his plate. John looked around to see if anybody was watching; Harry had expressly told him that he was “undercover,” after all, and surely he was meant to be even _more_ undercover with his new decline in status.

“I heard you pummelled Powers to a _pulp_ ,” said Harry, her voice low and serious.

Oh no, was she going to write Mum and Dad and tell them what happened? Was she going to tell them, even, that he’d gotten _detention?_ In his first three weeks of school?

“That’s not entirely true...” John protested quickly. “It wasn’t like that!”

“Good on you,” said Harry, grinning. “I am in full favour of anyone whose fist makes friends with Carl Powers’ smug little face.”

She reached over and ruffled his hair, something which she knew that he hated.

“Hey!” John said, ducking down to avoid her hand. It was not very effective.

“You may now tell people that we’re related,” she said, graciously.

“Oh,” John said, and smiled at her.

“Of course, let’s not get too crazy with this,” she added quickly. “For your own safety, little brother. You might still want to tell people we’re second cousins twice removed.”

“Right,” said John, who did not even know how second cousins worked.

“And listen,” said Harry, “I know people are spewing a lot of rubbish about you lately. They’re absolute nitwits. Oh, believe me, normally I’d kill you for losing all those House points. But Carl Powers is such a bloody awful git that I think it’s worth 300 House points to see him get punched in the face. So stop worrying your stupid little blond head about those morons, all right? They’ll find something new to talk about next week.”

She grabbed a clotted-cream and strawberry-filled chocoball off John’s plate, popping it into her mouth. “Harry!” John protested. Those were his favourites, and he’d been saying them for last.

“You do what you want,” said Harry, chewing loudly. “You do the right thing and it’ll all be all right. But you really need to get that creepy little Slytherin friend of yours to teach you how not to get caught.”

“Hey, has anybody seen Harry?” said a melodic girl’s voice. John could hear the noise outside the entrance to Gryffindor Tower. The secret society had come to collect their wayward member.

“Now, I’ve got to be off,” said Harry, snatching another chocoball off his plate, despite John’s loud protests. “You remember what I told you, all right, Pygmy Puff?”

“Don’t call me that,” said John, face scrunching up in distaste.

“Second cousins,” Harry reminded him, “twice removed.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said John, and watched as he lost his sister again, as the four-headed monster had come back for its wandering limb.

He did, however, feel marginally better, despite the fact that his dessert was all gone.

Then Gregory Lestrade, Gryffindor Prefect, sat down next to him on the sofa and that marginal feeling of betterness seemed to twist and flit away. He held his breath and waited for the inevitable Lestrade Lecture about just how many House Points they’d lost and how difficult it would be for Gryffindor to take the House Cup this year.

Greg Lestrade was notorious for his Gryffindor Spirit and ardent House Pride. Rumour had it that two years ago, when Slytherin had beat Gryffindor in the last Quidditch match of the season, it had taken three Prefects and a Professor to keep Lestrade from throwing himself into the lake. He was also the most brutal and tyrannical Quidditch Captain Gryffindor had seen in seventy-eight years, they said - it wasn’t a true Greg Lestrade practise unless one team member was sent to the Infirmary for exhaustion.

John braced himself.

“Prefect Lestrade,” he greeted, energy focused on keeping his voice and hands steady.

“Oh, just call me Greg,” said Greg, smiling at him. John didn’t know whether he should trust his smile, but then again, Greg was a Gryffindor, not a Slytherin, and usually Gryffindors didn’t smile like that if they were about to rip one’s head off.

“Rough day, huh?” Greg said, surprisingly sympathetic.

“No,” said John, stabbing a piece of turkey with his fork.

“I like the cut of your jib, Watson,” said Greg. John glanced up at him and then looked quickly back at his plate. He was not used to all this attention from people wearing badges and other such distracting shiny things.

“Hmm,” Greg said, looking him up and down. “How are you on a broom? You are remarkably small...”

Normally John would have protested this with the fact that his mum constantly reassured him that he was still growing, but now he only sighed. “Are you going to ask about my Liz-Bean parents?”

“What?” Greg said, confused. Apparently he had not heard of Liz-Beans either, and John felt better that he knew something that a fifth-year Prefect didn’t. “No, no. What I mean is, you have an excellent build for a Seeker. Ever play Quidditch?”

“No,” said John, who knew about Quidditch from Harry, who said it was _brilliant_ and that she was _definitely_ going to make Beater this year, but she had never really bothered to explain the rules to him. He hadn’t even mounted a broom until his first flying lesson two weeks ago, although Madam Hooch had said he was rather all right.

“Then you have a whole year to learn and practise,” Greg said, and smiled at him. “Everybody’s built differently. People are all built for different things. I think you’d be very quick and agile out on the field. So do me and, really, our whole team a favour and practise flying, all right?”

“Okay,” John said, unable to help the warm flush that rose to his cheeks and the little flip in his stomach. Him! On the Quidditch team! _Imagine that!_

This temporary joy, of course, only made what he’d done more horrible, all things considering.

“I’m sorry about the House points,” John mumbled.

“Carl Powers is a wanker,” Greg sighed. “A terrific Beater, though. But a terrible boy.”

John was inclined to agree, although he didn’t know if being a great Beater made up for being a horrible person.

Greg shrugged. “Ah, well. Like we say every year, there will always be next year.” He grinned. “And we’d have much better chances, you know, if we have an unbeatable winning team.”

“Don’t worry too much about people who don’t know anything,” said Greg, as he started to get up. “Focus on doing good things. Like getting better at Quidditch.”

“All right,” John said, smiling up at him, just as Bill and Mike entered the Common Room.

“Were you just talking to _Prefect Lestrade?_ ” Bill whispered, nodding his head towards Greg’s retreating back. “What did he want? Are you in _more_ trouble, John?”

“ _No,_ ” John said. And then, with an undeniable feeling of pride, he told them, “ _Greg_ just said that I should try out for the Quidditch team next year, because I have an ‘excellent build for a Seeker.’”

“Of course!” said Bill, smacking himself on the forehead. “Why didn’t I see it before? You’re small and light and I bet you’re really quick. Perfect!”

“We’ll practise flying together, John,” said Mike warmly.

“Oi, Prefect Lestrade!” Bill called, across the room. “Good eye! You could be a Quidditch talent scout. I mean, John’s like, freakishly small, he’ll be wonderful!”

“Not helping, Bill!” John cried. It was really quite a feeling, to have one’s fragile little ego, only recently rebuilt, shatter into a million pieces. He’d never quite experienced anything like it.

“Motion to never allow Bill to speak again,” said Mike.

“Seconded!” said John, with great enthusiasm.

“Two against three,” said Mike. “Majority rules.”

“Hey!” said Bill.

“Shhh,” said John, finger to his lips. “Quiet time is now.”

“mmm mmmrrmph,” mumbled Bill, “mrow mm mmi mmosd mo mell muuu mm mmi mmaff mmming mmor mmu?”

“Oh! That’s right! I suppose Bill has something to say,” Mike said.

“Just a little longer,” said John. “I’ve had a really long day.”

 

* * *

 

 

It was nearly bedtime before the Ban on Bill-words was lifted. Both John and Mike were saddened to see it go, although they had missed Bill-words a little, tiny bit. Bill celebrated the lifting of the ban by making as much noise as possible, although admittedly he had been doing that already, with the way he had been rummaging through his wardrobe, his bedside table, and then his trunk.

“Found it!” Bill cried, thrusting his fist up into the air in triumph. From between his fingers, a thin gold chain glinted in the light.

“Ah, yes,” said Mike. “John, Bill has something that he would like to say to you.”

“John,” said Bill, “I know we had a disagreement earlier and I would like to give you something.”

“Because....?” Mike prompted.

Bill took a deep breath and let out an even deeper sigh. “Because while I may not agree with your life choices, I respect them and support you,” he said, flatly.

“Oh,” said John. “Well, thank you.”

“I know you insist on being friends with Sherlock Holmes,” said Bill in resigned tones. “Despite how dangerous, negative, stupid, toxic--”

 _“Bill,”_ warned Mike, dangerously.

“Well, you get the picture,” Bill finished quickly. “And again I don’t have to like it, but it would make me feel much better if you would wear this.”

John held out his hand so that Bill could place a tarnished small gold amulet into it. It was covered with sigils. In the middle of it there was an intricate eye, and embedded inside the pupil there was a deep red stone, that might have possibly been a ruby, although the stone was chipped.

“What is it?” asked John.

“It’s S.W.A.G.,” Bill replied. “Of course!”

“Swag?” John echoed.

“Shiny Wizardy Amulet...Gorilla?” Mike offered helpfully.

“Sacred Wonder-full Anti-evil Guardian,” said Bill. “It should ward off bad luck, Curses, nightmares, and minor skin problems. And it will protect you from the Evil Eye.”

“Ah, yes, the Evil Eye,” said John, nodding sagely. “Like Sauron.”

Bill frowned with confusion. Mike giggled.

“Look, don’t come running to me when you’re covered with boils...”

“Well, If I’m really _covered_ with boils I won’t really be running,” said John. “I might be crawling painfully on the floor and crying...”

“This is the gratitude I get for watching out for you?” Bill snapped. “Give me that back.”

“No, no, Bill, I’m sorry,” said John quickly, dutifully abashed. “I didn’t mean it. It’s a beautiful S.W.A.G.”

“It is,” Bill said, proudly. “I’ve had it for a while but I think you’re going to need it far more than I do, if you plan to hang around freaky-creepy Holmes all the time.”

“Don’t talk about him like that,” said John.

“But that’s what he _is,_ ” Bill insisted.

“We do not use those words, Bill,” said Mike, who was wise in the methods of intervention. “Say sorry. And John, put your nice S.W.A.G. on, and say thank you.”

“Sorry, John,” mumbled Bill.

“Apology accepted,” said John, who put the amulet on. “And thank you.”

The three of them got ready for bed, each one of them settled in for the night. John gently touched the amulet around his neck.

“Sweet dreams, John,” Bill whispered, after the lights went out in the Gryffindor dormitories. “But I _know_ they will be....”

“Bill, that’s creepy,” John said. “Don’t do that.”

“Shhh,” said Bill, snuggling into his pillow. “Go to sleep, sweet little John. Rest your pretty baby angel head and don’t worry about a thing.”

“Bill, that _is_ really creepy,” said Mike.

“Motion for Bill to stop being creepy so we can all get to sleep,” said John.

“Seconded,” said Mike.

“Fine,” harrumphed Bill. “Goodnight, Mike.”

“Goodnight, Bill,” said Mike.

“Goodnight, John,” said Bill.

“Goodnight, Bill,” said John.

When the three boys drifted off to sleep that night, none of them had bad dreams, and they did not worry about a thing.

 

* * *

 

 

Potions class had officially started about ten minutes ago, but in truth it started about four minutes and thirty seconds ago, because the interim was how long it took to get both the Gryffindor and Slytherin classes to settle down.

By now, however, the students had already split up into their groups, working in pairs and threes; divvying up the tasks amongst them, taking notes and gathering ingredients.

The seat next to Sherlock was still empty.

John Watson, Sherlock knew, was never late to class. He greeted each and every class with unbounding enthusiasm. He was usually early if at all possible, running to his classes, despite the whinging of his Gryffindor cronies plodding behind him, dragging their feet.

Said Gryffindor cronies were already seated, arguing over the best way to crush snake fangs. They, too, had an empty seat at their Potions bench, and neither of them seemed concerned that John was missing. Of course, it was also wholly possible that neither of them had even _noticed_ John was missing, too engrossed in debating the particulars of whether one was supposed to ground or pound the snake fangs, and what would happen if one accidentally (or intentionally) inhaled the dust.

There were a number of reasons that John could be missing. He could have simply fallen ill, and gone to the Infirmary rather than attend classes today. There was that Vesuvian Vomitus going around, after all - only Sherlock had already expressly advised him how to avoid it. Or worse, something might have happened to him en route to class; poor John could have fallen victim to any of the unknown horrors that prowled the school hallways. Then again, this was unlikely, as the most recent edition of _Hogwarts: A History_ had boasted of a current record of over 26 years without a single reported untimely student demise - much to Sherlock’s chagrin.

And then there was a very logical, very plausible, very awful reason: John had changed his mind about Sherlock, and would rather skip class altogether than have to break the news to him. John had experienced firsthand what it meant to be associated with Sherlock Holmes: ostracisation from one’s own Housemates and mockery from the rest of the school. Within 24 hours his previously comfortable social status had plummeted to the level of unhousebroken house elf. The choice was obvious; one would have to be extraordinarily stupid to not cut off all ties after _that._

And that was all right. That was fine. It was exactly as Sherlock had predicted and he was, as always, right, and he couldn’t care any less, really, it wasn’t like people ever existed for any real purpose other than to be great disappointments to him. Sherlock pounded the mortar with the pestle so hard that the whole lab bench shook and glass vials rattled, pulverising the snake fangs into fine dust. And at no point did he look down to the empty seat beside him.

Being alone was just fine. He worked better alone, anyway.

“Sherlock!” came a familiar little voice, breathless, and Sherlock’s head snapped up to see John Watson, with his hair mussed and his robes streaked with grey stripes of dust. His shoes were untied.

“Sorry I’m late,” John said, panting a little. His cheeks were bright from running. “They hid my--”

“Shoes,” said Sherlock. “They hid your shoes and you had to look for them in all sorts of places.”

“Brilliant!” grinned John, although it had been an excruciatingly obvious observation. Sherlock felt his cheeks warm a little regardless.

“Those awful gits put them somewhere high so I couldn’t reach and I didn’t see them for a while. Bad news for them,” John said, straightening himself a little, “I am a Master of the Summoning Charm.”

Then he ducked his head and smiled a bit sheepishly. “Bad news for me, it turns out you have to be a little more specific than just saying _‘accio shoes.’_ I plan to be far, far away from the Gryffindor Common when everybody returns from classes.”

“I hear Bolivia is lovely this time of year,” Sherlock said.

“Exactly right,” John giggled. He peered into the mortar, to see the finely-crushed powder that Sherlock had created. “Oh, you’ve already gotten started. What can I do?”

“You don’t really need to do anything,” said Sherlock. “I’ve got it all handled. You can just sit there and take notes.”

“Don’t be silly,” said John. “We’re partners. That means we help each other and we do everything together. We’re a team. Isn’t that right?”

“Well. I suppose that’s all right,” said Sherlock. He then reached over to turn down the fire on the cauldron, as he suddenly felt overly warm.

 

* * *

 

 

“I met a friend of yours yesterday,” John said, resting his chin on his hands while he watched the cauldron bubble.

“A friend?!” Sherlock asked, unable to hide his shock. He hadn’t had someone call themselves his friend since he was eight years old, and that relationship had been tragically short-lived. An experimental oversight, on his part.

“An enemy,” John corrected himself.

“Oh,” said Sherlock. This made far more sense. “Which one?”

“Well, your arch-enemy, according to him,” John clarified. “Sometimes. Do people have arch-enemies? And is that a real part-time job?”

There was only one person, really, who often found himself in the unenviable position of being Sherlock’s part-time nemesis. “Did he offer you money to spy on me?” Sherlock asked.

“And sweets,” John added helpfully.

“Did you take it?” Sherlock was hopeful.

“No,” John replied, with a proud tilt of his chin.

“Pity,” said Sherlock. “We could have split it. All the Honeydukes sweets we could eat, John! What a missed opportunity. Think it through next time.”

John blinked at him, amazed. “But, who is he?”

“One day,” Sherlock declared grandly, “he will be the most dangerous man you’ve ever met.” He was sure of it. “For now, though, he’s only annoying. Not our problem right now. Over there, the slugs.”

“Slugs...?” John said. He looked into the glass jar on the table, recently retrieved during the waiting period, and then he paled.

“Sherlock,” John said, “it’s Rocky!”

Sherlock looked - indeed it was the Horned Slug that they had christened Rachmaninoff (that John insisted on calling a ridiculous nickname), unmistakable with its bright colour and leopard pattern.

“Sherlock,” John whispered, “we can’t _boil_ Rocky.”

“No, we can’t,” Sherlock agreed. “The instructions specifically say to stew him.”

[ ](http://traumachu.tumblr.com/post/64227918001/fishsicle-happy-birthday-michi)

John made a strangled sound of distress and grabbed at the jar, which grated with the sound of heavy glass scraping against wood as John pulled it towards him and clutched it to his defiant little body.

“John,” Sherlock said, patiently - and he’d never been patient before, “it is only a Horned slug. There are literally hundreds of them in the Greenhouses.”

“Yes,” said John, “but Rocky’s special. He’s _our_ slug. We fed him and we’re going to train him and we gave him a name.” He reached into the jar and pulled out Rachmaninoff from where it had been nestled, as its slimy brethren attempted to slowly climb the glass walls. “And he likes you. We can’t stew him! Just look at this cute, adoring little face! We must save him!”

John held out the slug for inspection. It sat there in his hands, doing nothing other than simply _existing,_ gastropodic and slimy. Sherlock was not sure if two eyestalks and some sort of indiscernible mouth-opening met the requisite qualifications of “cute little face” and he knew for sure that slugs did not possess the emotional capacity to be adoring.

Then he looked at John, who currently far exceeded the qualifications for “hopeful little face,” dark blue eyes rapt and wide, focused intently on Sherlock. There was a sudden, dizzying moment where Sherlock realised he held the power of life and death in his hands, and, moreover, he had the power of one John Watson’s faith invested in him.

Sherlock didn’t think that anybody had ever believed in him so completely before. Usually people did not believe in him at all, and, if they had half a brain - like Mummy or Mycroft - they believed in him with some reservation, and rightfully so.

John was being ridiculous. It was completely illogical.

It was just a slug.

“Fine,” said Sherlock. “We shall spare the life of Rachmaninoff.”

“Hurray!” cheered John, and he hugged the slug to him briefly, getting slime on his robes. Then he looked dubiously at the other slugs in the jar. “You don’t suppose they’re related, do you? Like...those aren’t his mummy and daddy or brothers or sisters or friends in there?”

Sherlock looked at the clock; if he took the time to explain slug mating habits and reproduction and their overall lack of familial structure and relationships, they would miss the window to actually add the slugs to the potion and their potion would be ruined. And if John worried about every Horned Slug they came across in Potions, he was bound to fail the entire course.

Sherlock thought quickly, as was usual for him.

“No,” he said. “You can tell they’re not related at all by their lack of distinctive leopard pattern. So, not family then. Rachmaninoff is different from the other slugs. Did you see how they were clustered away from him in the jar? They were avoiding him, trying to get away from him. Nature does not take kindly to aberrations.”

“Oh,” said John. “So they hated him for absolutely no reason at all.”

“Yes,” Sherlock confirmed. “They are slug-bullies.”

“Well, let’s stew the nasty little things up, then,” John said.

They worked quickly and efficiently together after that. Sherlock particularly so, so that they could finish the potion before John could form a strange sentimental attachment to the porcupine quills or Flobberworm Mucus or something.

And there was nothing quite like slipping a Horned Slug into your robes to make you stop and question your decisions up to this very vital, slimy point in your life.

When John looked at Sherlock, however, and beamed and beamed like he’d just watched an Abraxan take flight into a stunning sunset for the very first time, and he whispered, “You’re a _hero_ ,” even though it wasn’t the least bit true, Sherlock rather thought that his life choices were not half bad.

 

* * *

 

Mycroft Holmes was fastidiously working on his essay on the _Social Stratification of Societies of Serpentine Soldiers_ when a certain frantic little brother rushed into the room, shouting his name. “Mycroft!” Sherlock said, panting a little. He looked a fright, streaks of dirt across his face and leaves and bits of twigs stuck in his hair. And on his left shoulder, sat something fat, shiny, and wet.

“Sherlock,” Mycroft said, recoiling in disgust. “Is that a _Horned Slug?_ ”

“No,” said Sherlock quickly. “Well, yes. I mean, yes, but it’s not what you think. Don’t take away House points. Can you get me a terrarium?”

Mycroft sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. Merlin give him strength.

“I know you can, you can get anything,” said Sherlock. “And _Mycroft,_ ” he continued, whining, “If we don’t find a terrarium for him I shall have to _sleep_ with him on account of him having nowhere else to go and I shall get _slime_ all over myself and my _nice, expensive_ dressing gown and clothes...”

“All right, all right,” Mycroft relented. “Just stop rubbing that thing all over yourself. I’m sure it can’t be healthy. For you or the slug.”

Sherlock stopped the spread of slime, thankfully.

The slug looked grateful, too.

“You may keep that unsightly creature in the Common Room,” Mycroft continued. “Merlin only knows what sort of unhygienic things you bring into your dormitory already without adding that to the pile. I found a nest of dead horklumps under your bed the other day. How long had they been there?”

“You didn’t move it, did you?” Sherlock asked, anxiously.

Mycroft gave him a Look.

“You threw it away?!” Sherlock cried. “Mycroft, how could you? The sign clearly said ‘Do Not Disturb’! It was an experiment! You are an archnemesis to...not only myself, but the progress of all wizardkind!”

“No rotting dead things under the bed, Sherlock,” Mycroft sighed. “We are not having this discussion yet _again._ You’re very lucky I found them before they started to smell and alerted the rest of your Housemates to their decaying presence.”

 _“Fine,”_ Sherlock grumbled. “But I want to keep Rachmaninoff - the slug - in my room, next to my bed. I need to be able to observe him whenever I like and the Common Room is too busy and full of people always and that’s too distracting for me. And Trevor will probably mess with him if I keep him out in the open. It is very important that Rachmaninoff stays in my room. It is imperative. In the name of the pursuit of knowledge. For magic.”

Mycroft looked at him, unimpressed.

Sherlock stared back defiantly, slug in his hands. Very slowly, he dragged the slug across his robes again.

“Sherlock...” Mycroft warned.

“And if I can’t keep experiments under the bed I want to keep them in my drawer at least, I can put charms over the drawers so nobody sees or smells, so I don’t see why I can’t,” Sherlock said, clutching the slug to the front of him.

“No, Sherlock,” Mycroft sighed. “Slug in the Common Room, no experiments in the dormitories. That’s final.”

“I’ll tell everybody about that _item_ I found,” Sherlock said suddenly. “You know, that little bit of _‘clothing’_ that belongs to Prefect--”

“Sherlock!” Mycroft cut him off sharply. “Are you attempting to blackmail me?”

“It’s not an attempt. I _am,_ ” Sherlock said.

Mycroft opened his mouth and closed it again. He found himself, infuriatingly, struggling between pride and sheer exasperation. This was an all-too-common emotional conflict when it came to Sherlock, which was a surprise to absolutely no one.

“Fine,” he finally said. “You may keep your slug in the bedroom as long as it remains as far away from your bed as logistically possible, _and_ inside its terrarium at all times. Then, perhaps, we will work on Charms for your drawer.”

“Yes!” Sherlock cheered, thrusting the slug up in the air in triumph.

“But no more rifling through my things,” Mycroft warned him, “And stop snooping in my room. There will be dire consequences if you do.”

“You snoop in my room all the time,” Sherlock protested.

“Yes,” Mycroft agreed, “But I assure you that my room does not pose a severe health hazard to myself, my Housemates, and potentially the entire school.”

“Spoilsport,” Sherlock pouted.

He suddenly noticed a pile of scrolls on the desk, and nodded towards them. “Oh! Are those my transfer papers?”

“Well, yes, you have been asking for them for quite some--”

 _“Incendio!”_ Sherlock cast, causing the little pile to promptly burst into flame.

“Sherlock,” Mycroft reproached, “some of that was my homework.”

“Oh,” said Sherlock. “Well, it won’t take you any time at all to redo it. More importantly, you don’t need the application or transfer papers anymore. I don’t want to go to Durmstrang. I have decided that I like it here.”

He tilted his chin up with pride. “I...I have made a friend.”

He smiled then, a real, genuine smile, open and guileless, the likes of which were so rare that Mycroft had probably seen it no more than five times in the last three years. His pale eyes were bright, his cheeks flushed. He was happy. _Happy._

“Okay, that’s all. I wanted you to know. I have to go now, goodbye!” Sherlock said. He flashed Mycroft one of his quicksilver smiles, turned on his heel, and ran out of the room again - a small tornado of a boy, leaving a bemused brother in his wake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  
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> [Jill drew these precious babies. Remember to like/reblog to show her love!](http://venvephe.tumblr.com/post/44718619290/for-michi-since-shes-writing-an-absolutely)
> 
> Picture of Sherlock and John with Rocky was by the incredible and incredibly sweet [Fishsicle!](http://fishsicle.tumblr.com) [Reblog link is here.](http://traumachu.tumblr.com/post/64227918001/fishsicle-happy-birthday-michi)


	6. Christmas Letters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! I always associate Potter things with Christmas. THIS CHAPTER MADE POSSIBLE BY THE FOLLOWING PEOPLE:
> 
> [JILL](http://venvephe.tumblr.com) ([venvephe](http://archiveofourown.org/users/venvephe/pseuds/venvephe) on AO3) who helped me write Sherlock's letters!!
> 
> precious baby beekitten [p-chi](http://p-chi.tumblr.com/) who provided the art!! 
> 
> THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR SKILLZ!!!
> 
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> 
> **edit: I EXCEEDED BANDWIDTH ON THIS CHAPTER THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR HITS but give me a moment to fix it please**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas Bonus: The kitten jumper!!
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